A Saotome In Konoha's Court
by Perfect Lionheart
Summary: A silly piece where I attempt to use the Ranma 1/2 cast to cause as much confusion, consternation and chaos in the Naruto world as possible, just for laughs.
1. Chapter 1

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter One

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

"RANMA NO BAK....!"

Ranma crouched before the blow that... never happened? Uncurling slightly, the boy looked up to see, not the Tendo house where he'd been abused for the past year, but an infinite expanse of starry night, with smooth stone under his feet stretching out to the horizon in all directions and glittering with its own internal stars.

"Wha..?" he just barely began to say, before sensing a presence behind him and snapping about in an instant defensive stance.

Only to be staring at himself.

"No, I'm not actually you." the figure replied, and the Neriman martial artist could see for himself the truth of that statement. The double moved all wrong. Sloppy.

"I'm just wearing this form for a minute to disguise who I really am," the double continued conversationally. "And time outside does not move while you are here."

Ranma took a moment to look around. This place was nothing like anything he was familiar with. There were no buildings, no grass, no plants or animals of any kind. In truth, it felt like standing on the surface of an impossible huge glass marble. Still, he was no stranger to the odd or unusual. "Why'd ya bring me here?" the pigtailed martial artist challenged.

"Because of a bet," his double replied. "A couple of us cosmic entities were hanging around watching a few of you more interesting mortals, and a disagreement arose among us over which of you had the hardest life."

Ranma stood up straight and rubbed his head where Akane's expected blow had NOT fallen, and grumbled a moment too low to hear, although 'uncute tomboys' could be picked out. The lack of available exits, or any real hope of one, kept him around and listening even though he suspected he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

Call it a feeling.

"So we decided to hold a contest to find out," the double declared. "You, and a few of the more interesting players from your world, will be switched with another hero and a few of the more interesting players of his."

"HEY!" Ranma shouted, fists thrust down to his sides and he suddenly leaned forward in the intruder's face. "Don't I got no say in this!?? What gives ya the right to go meddling around with my life? I get enough of that from the Old Man!"

"Exactly," his double continued reasonably, having suddenly appeared a safe distance away and on another side. "That's the interesting part, you get to leave all of your troubles behind, for a time, and try on an entirely new set... well, new for you, anyway. The same for the hero you will be replacing. He gets to leave his hard life behind, and all its troubles, and see if he can handle yours better. The one who holds out the longest wins."

"And just why would I want to go along with this?" Ranma cracked his knuckles.

The double pieced him with a look that reminded him of Nabiki at his most dangerous. "Think of it as a challenge, Saotome."

Ranma gulped, suddenly apprehensive.

The figure went on with an airy wave. "Look at it this way, we are willing to pay you for resolving our bet for us. First, I'll give you a set of techniques to help you in your new world - just what the hero you'll be replacing had, of course. I wouldn't want to be seen giving you an unfair advantage. Then, should you hold out longer than the one who'll be replacing you, solving his problems better than he solves yours, you'll get another set of gifts. Think of it as a prize, of sorts."

"Hmph," Ranma snorted, cockiness reasserting itself. "Yeah, well, if I win this thing then you gotta cure my curse!"

"Granted," his double replied, completely unruffled.

Ranma's eyes bugged out over how easy that was to get his agreement.

His double then turned his head and froze for a moment, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. After a moment he shook himself, and reoriented on Ranma, "Well, it seems you are due another bonus at the start. The hero you'll be replacing made a successful argument with the entity dealing with him for an extra starting advantage, and so you'll be due an equivalent one yourself, just to keep things fair. What would you like?"

"Can you cure my curse now?" the teenage aquatranssexual asked eagerly.

In reply the figure slowly shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. That's already been locked in as your prize for winning this contest. You'll have to ask for something else now."

Ranma thought about it a moment, scratching his head. "Well, I dunno. What sort of things will I need?"

"An excellent question!" his double replied, and instantly the glassy surface beneath their feet filled with images of a quasi-modern village surrounded by trees. The double smiled, "And, incidentally, you just helped me win a small side bet I'd made. Most entities were sure neither of you would ask any questions at all about the worlds you'll be going to."

"The person you will be replacing is called Naruto Uzumaki," the being explained. "He is a ninja of the village of Konoha, and this is a snapshot of his life, right about the time you will be taking over for him."

Images played in the stone beneath their feet that basically played out the first episode of the Naruto animated series.

The stranger watched Ranma watch the show, and when it had concluded he said, "You will be taking over for him on one of the defining moments of his life - the day he gets his team assignment. Everyone will believe you have always been him, forget his name to use yours instead..."

Ranma glared at the stranger sharing his appearance doubtfully, interrupting his monologue, "Yeah, but ya ain't never said what I'm supposed ta DO as this guy!"

The stranger smiled again. "You won another bet for me, Ranma. No one up there would believe you'd ask that question. Your goals are twofold, just the same as his goals. You will have to overcome his problems, and reach his dream. That's all, and while you do that he will be in Nerima trying to solve your problems and reach your dream."

The stranger leveled a glance at him, "Don't forget, you are there to solve his problems, just as he is taking your place to solve yours. Leave everything your father did to you behind. It doesn't count where you are going. Those are his problems now, not yours."

"So what are the problems I gotta be solvin now?" Ranma asked with narrowed eyes.

"Good question!" the stranger replied, and the scenes in the viewing stone changed. "First, through no fault of his own, the village hates Naruto. With things as they are they will never accept him. On October tenth twelve years ago, the day Naruto was born, a gigantic nine tailed demon fox attacked the village, causing vast destruction. Hundreds died. The Fourth Hokage, leader at the time, also lost his life stopping the attack. He sealed the demon into his infant son. The villagers believe the demon and the boy to be one and the same, and they also blame the child for the death of their beloved Fourth Hokage."

"This man," the images within the stone shifted, "the Third Hokage, who took the office back after his successor died, is responsible for having released to the village the secret of Naruto being the container of the demon fox, which spawned the hate. He also kept his true parentage a secret, which is the only thing that might have stopped the hate. However, in spite of this, he sees himself as a close friend of Naruto, and has put upper limits on what people are allowed to do to abuse him. Naruto calls him 'Grandpa' and they have ramen together once a week. Once he dies, the secret of your parentage could never be revealed in a way that could convince anyone. Getting him to do that is one of your goals."

The other being wearing his face cocked his head at Ranma. "The other major obstacle is no one is willing to give Naruto any training. His goal is to be Hokage, the most powerful ninja of the village, yet neither his academy instructors (who actively sabotaged him), nor his team leader (who completely ignores him) will give him any training of any kind. And don't even ask the Hokage, as he'll refer you back to those who aren't doing those jobs."

Ranma nodded. Getting techniques was something he thought he could handle, but the people hating him part... he wasn't so sure of.

"Ya said something about 'other players'? Who are they?"

Once again the double smiled. "The others coming from your world are secret. They are having their own briefings as we speak. They will pursue their own goals, which may or may not clash with yours. But whether they succeed in their missions most often will have no bearing on yours. Some will be asked simply to find you, and to keep that challenge fresh none of you will be granted information on the others to start with."

"That's not what I'm askin," Ranma waved the information off, though quietly he was making sure to remember it. That 'may or may not clash' bit had already convinced him that some of the players he recognized would be put in the 'clash' department. "I was asking about this Naruto guy. He's got that teacher, Iruka. Who else will be around?"

The double nodded, and the images changed, showing faces that would be familiar to Naruto. "Minor players are too many to count. Most are against him." Faces of his landlord, food retailers, minor ninja and a host of villagers flashed by, before stopping on a one eyed guy in a mask. "Naruto's teacher, Kakashi, is actually one of your greatest obstacles. Then there are your future teammates: Sakura, who abuses him, and Sasuke, who has all of the advantages you don't for reaching Naruto's goal. He has the popularity you won't, and once his bloodline awakes he will be able to copy any skill instantly simply by watching it done. It can also predict an enemy's movements before they happen, see through any illusion, cast unbeatable illusions of its own, distort space time, burn through anything, dispel bad odors, make excellent coffee and clean windows to sparkling brightness at a glance."

The stranger wearing Ranma's face paused to let that sink in before adding, "He is also your greatest rival, and will inevitably turn traitor to your village and try to kill you and destroy your home - Oh, and for you to win this thing Konoha can't be destroyed by anyone. But even after he does all this, the villagers would still far rather he become Hokage than you."

Ranma scowled, staring down at the gigantic pouting face showed in detail in the clear stone beneath his feet. "So, it sounds like this is the guy I gotta beat. Do ya got something for me to help me do that?"

"Naruto had unbeatable energy reserves and regeneration. You won't," the stranger told him with a shrug. "Those are considered essential to his character and so are going with him. You get to be hated as if you had the demon in your stomach, but won't actually have it."

"So what do I get?" the martial artist repeated.

Once more the stranger shrugged. "You get to keep your own set of advantages. You are considered a premier martial artist - something that Naruto never had, but Sasuke's eyes will be able to copy those at a glance and instantly and invariably defeat them."

"So? I'll just have to come up with something new," Ranma boasted, pointing a thumb at his chest confidently.

The figure chuckled, crossing his arms. "Anything new you come up with he will also be able to copy and defeat instantly. On this issue I'm already betting against you. You can't win."

"Oh yeah?" The got Ranma's danger up, and he pointed at the guy wearing his face. "But you said I get some kind of a bonus to start with, right? So what I want is some ultimate defense against this guy's super eyes!"

The figure wearing Ranma's face scowled, and looked like he wanted to open his mouth to deny the request. But then he stopped, as if listening to thin air again. Finally he frowned and threw down a set of scrolls bound with ribbons. "Fine!"

"This," he pointed angrily to the first one, "describes your grandfather Happosai's ability to stand in plan sight and simply vanish from view. It is called Chi Invisibility, and takes more energy the more people you become invisible to. As a side effect of learning the technique your chi energy becomes permanently cloaked. You can show your aura if you want to, but other than that no one can sense your body energy."

"This," he pointed to a second scroll, actually a bound book, smirking nastily, "is a training manual for initiation from what we call a Shadowrun world. Their mages can learn to cloak their magical energies so they cannot be detected. This describes the technique."

The double stood and scowled angrily, crossing his arms. "The combination of chi, or body energy, and mana, or magical energy, is the basis for all techniques in Naruto's world. As you already know, each can be used separately, but in Naruto's world they are always used combined, and it is the primary special power of the Sharingan to see this energy. But to avoid its illusion casting power you need the third scroll. It describes psionic techniques to shield your mind much like the other two. Once you've mastered all three, you'll be immune to the Sharingan. But seeing as how you're Ranma 'I hate magic' Saotome, I doubt you'll have the guts. You certainly don't have the experience, or underlying skill."

The real Ranma's eyes narrowed at the figure, solemnly resolving right there to prove the guy wrong.

The figure sneered back, taunting, "And even if you do learn what most mages don't about magic, you won't have a single spell - or psionic power beyond the basic shield. Face it, mortal, you're going to lose because you're just a dumb jock. And no dumb jock is ever going to defeat an Uchiha, even if the Sharingan doesn't work on you. It will work on enough other people that he'll have every skill he needs to totally destroy you!"

"You said you were going to teach me the techniques this Naruto guy knows?" Ranma ground out, resisting the urge to shout or try to pound him. Something in his gut warned him those might not be the best choices right now. He wanted to hurt this creep, but already his agile mind had settled on making the jerk lose his bet as the best way of doing that.

Besides, NOBODY beat Ranma Saotome!

The double stepped to the side, and behind where he stood was revealed a pillar, waist high, on which glittered several jewels. "Touch each jewel to learn what's inside. You have here what Naruto knows: general background information, the town of Konoha, the people he knows, his history, pranks, the ninja techniques he uses: Replacement, Shapeshift, and his Sexy variant of it, plus Shadow Clone; also how to mold chakra as he does - which is pathetic, as you know from watching that segment earlier. You get to use the Shapeshift skill instead of the Disguise of other ninja because that is what Naruto uses, but you're on your own with the Shadow Clone. He can make hundreds, but you'll probably never make more than four at a time. You enter the world when you've touched all of these jewels."

And with that, the false-Ranma was gone.

-oOoOo-

Ranma Saotome never loses.

A Saotome could also never refuse a challenge. Of course, with that 'leave everything your father did to you behind', and those being that Naruto guy's problems now, not his, maybe Ranma could afford to turn down a challenge or two.

The trouble was, this didn't look to be one of them.

As near as he could tell, the place he was in was infinite. He could run forever in any direction and just die tired. There wasn't any food here, or anything else save for those three scrolls and the short pillar with the jewels on it, and he'd enter this Naruto guy's world the moment he'd touched all of them.

Ranma had been in enough traps before to recognize a set-up when he saw one. That guy could just as easily have made more touch-jewels to teach the anti-Sharingan things as give him a couple of scrolls for them. But it was also in Ranma's experience that scrolls could be stolen, lost, or otherwise damaged.

And, if that entity guy wanted him to fail against the Sharingan, something would conspire so that the scrolls for teaching how to beat it would go missing somehow. Probably right after his arrival, if experience was anything to judge by.

Well, one of the first principles of the Saotome school was, 'If you don't like the rules, cheat!'

This guy didn't expect him to master any of those three techniques for mastering his mind and making that Sharingan thing useless. But if there was one thing Ranma was, it was a fast learner whenever he was faced with a challenge to overcome.

He sat down with the scrolls, reading them right there.

After all, didn't the guy let slip early on that 'time outside didn't move while he was there?' He could get an early start on his training, and hopefully sidetrack whatever plot that guy had to get rid of these scrolls before he could read 'em.

Three hours later his head ached. The chi technique was no problem. He had that in the first five minutes, or at least he thought so. It was hard to tell if you're invisible when the only person looking was yourself.

On that thought, the pigtailed martial artist had an idea. He could CHECK to see if that was working right! And maybe get an advantage on learning this magic stuff at the same time!

If he touched that jewel that taught how to use the Shadow Clone, he'd have someone to tell him if he was going invisible or not. Also, to use that technique he'd probably have to touch the other jewel that taught him how to use the energy it was based on. And THAT could solve him being stuck on this mana stuff!

After all, didn't the guy let slip that this chakra stuff was both magic and chi mixed together? He could focus his chi no problem. But he was stumped on learning how to shield his magic energies because he had no idea what he was doing, no place to even start.

However, just over there was a glinting jewel that all he had to do was touch and he'd know how to mold this chakra stuff. Then he could compare that to focusing his chi, and that would tell him how to use this mana stuff by practicing with whatever was left!

Even if all he could use was the energy, no spells, that could give him enough of a handle on what the magic scroll was talking about to be able to shield that energy from the stupid copy-eye thingy.

And so it proved.

Touching first the jewel teaching what that Naruto guy knew of chakra molding, Ranma knew in a heartbeat everything it taught, and the jewel itself went dark. One thing he knew instantly was this Naruto guy was nothing special in that area.

Ranma knew enough about his chi to have created his own form of attack with it. He was an acknowledged expert, and this Naruto fellow... wasn't.

Still, that stuff was part chi and part... whatever. Ranma didn't particularly like magic, in fact it was behind most of his sorest troubles; but he also refused to be anything but the best when it came down to whatever he devoted his time to, and since he was in this contest he was going to win it! Since that meant using chakra, he'd use chakra. And if half of it was magic ... well, that just added magic to the list of things Ranma was going to be best at!

Isolating his chi out of this chakra energy was simple. That left him to practice focusing on what was left, and those parts of 'chakra molding' that didn't apply to chi had to apply to this mana stuff, so he practiced and refined what he could of them, using the comparison to his chi techniques to give him ideas to work on. This was going to be a part of his fighting style, and Ranma Saotome was not going to be a sloppy fighter!

An hour later, his control of the other part of chakra was a great deal less pathetic. He could use them together or bring them out and focus them separately. And it was about all he could do without a teacher or more materials to study.

Then it was time to touch the Shadow Clone jewel to check to see if he'd achieved mastery of the Chi Invisibility technique before tackling those other books for a second time.

Once more he touched a jewel, thankful the guy had pointed out which was which as he was explaining them, and once again the knowledge flooded into his mind - suddenly there, just like he was recalling where he'd left a shopping list or that he ought to do something.

Ranma formed a handseal and with a puff of smoke suddenly there were two of him again, only this time the double moved like him. Then it vanished again.

"WHAT?!?" the original yelled. "They're supposed to last longer than that!"

Suddenly his clone reappeared, and began rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "Ah, sorry about that. I just thought, you know, we were supposed to test that chi invisibility technique."

"I was supposed to be testing that!" the original shouted.

"Sure," the clone shrugged, smiling happily.

"Right, now watch closely," Ranma carefully formed his chi, and then vanished.

"You turned invisible alright," his clone nodded, peering around for him.

"Good." Ranma reappeared, then dispelled his clone, reabsorbing the energy. As soon as he'd done so, however, the memories of that exchange from its perspective flooded into his mind, and Ranma was bright enough to recognize what that meant.

Soon there were three Ranmas sitting around, each studying different scrolls. The one on Happosai's chi technique had a few pointers he'd never heard before, and the others were going much better now he had a handle on more energy types. The magic one still wasn't easy, and he found the psionic one hardest of all, but he learned them all the same. And, as a consequence, discovered how to focus his magical energies better by having followed the principles in that initiation manual.

There were differences between those techniques, more than just whatever energy they covered. The chi stuff made his that part of his aura simply vanish, hiding like it wasn't even there. But the one for made initiates could hide his entire magical aura, OR disguise the stuff as though a normal person, or a mage at a lower level. And the one for psionics didn't hide your energies so much as form them into a shield so your enemies couldn't get in.

By comparing and contrasting the different methods, Ranma, who'd once copied Ryoga's chi attack by simple observation and experimentation, then modified that for better suiting his own use, was able to figure out through trial and error how to apply the benefits of each to all of the other energy types.

From the psionic 'form your energy into a shield' type he was able to learn how to form the other energies into protections also. He didn't know what the magic field stopped, as he had so little to test it against. But forming his chi into a shield protected his body from physical assaults, which was a good thing that it caused a grin to split his face once he'd learned that property of it.

Shadow Clones were dispelled by a hit. But now they'd have to break down the chi shield around a clone before they could hit it. It was an expensive option, sucking down lots of chi to stop the damage, but well worth having available for when you really needed it.

And he also learned how to cloak each of his three internal energy forms, either to stop them from being seen entirely, or to set them to another level to appear untrained.

As a precaution, he mastered each scroll thoroughly, even memorizing the techniques they taught just in case he had to patch up those shields later. Then, finally, once his stomach was growling so much he figured he'd been there for at least a day and a half, the boy decided he'd learned what he could and wrapped up the scrolls, dismissed his clones at last...

... and got knocked out by the sudden influx of knowledge.

Waking up again after an indeterminate amount of time, and thirsty as anything, the boy sat up rubbing his head from where he'd fallen.

"Ow! Couldn't the guy..."

His voice trailed off as his bright blue eyes lit on the short pillar, still topped with jewels, two of which no longer sparkled. His complaints about how much that technique hurt to dispel died in his throat.

He was in a trap. He knew the guy had set him up to fail. Ranma's mind was already in the 'find any way out of defeat you can' mode, and his normally hidden brilliance had already surfaced. But he wasn't out of the woods yet, and knew it. The whole test was rigged.

That Shadow Clone technique was useful, but he'd never be anywhere near as good with it as that Naruto guy, who'd made hundreds of clones in that brief clip he saw. But for Ranma, the primary disadvantage was that 'getting knocked out by knowledge' thing at the end.

Right there, on a pedestal before him, were glittering a few jewels that taught knowledge quickly and painlessly.

The Shadow Clones knocked him out if they learned too much, and gave him a headache.

Already in 'escape from the trap' mode, his hidden genius running full power, the boy got up and made a clone. It nodded to him, and went over to the pedestal, selecting a jewel. Since Ranma already knew a variation of the Replacement technique from his own world, he decided that was the most expendable one, so he had his clone touch it.

Then he reabsorbed the clone.

As expected, the knowledge came with it. However, instead of the 'freight train striking your brain' feeling of a clone that had learned too much, it was the gentle 'recalling something you never knew' sensation, overlaid just a touch by the freight train.

Ranma's stomach was growling, and he didn't have terribly much time. But he waited a minute while sorting those feelings out before making another clone.

It touched the Shapechange power before he reabsorbed it.

'Good', Ranma thought, scowling in concentration. He was able to diminish the 'freight train' feeling that time, and taught him enough to maybe eliminate it entirely in the future, with a little practice and experimentation he didn't have time for just then.

There followed a rapid succession of clones touching jewels and getting absorbed as he refined his technique for absorbing knowledge the jewel's way instead of the clone way.

Not thinking about the consequences, he made another clone to touch the last jewel and at the moment of contact he vanished.

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

There have been Ranma/Naruto crosses before. I've even read a few. But in my opinion they all lacked a certain... something.

Finally I think I nailed that down. They kept the Naruto universe feel, whereas I prefer the cheerful insanity of the Ranma series. Many also overlook the one cardinal rule: Whatever he does, Ranma is The Best at it!

So, since I'd been looking to get back to doing work on something lighthearted for a while now, I thought I'd give it a go.


	2. Chapter 2

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Two

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

Ranma woke, twelve years old at a desk in a room around people he recognized but could not put in context, and panicked for a moment before the general background from Naruto's perspective started rushing in, as his clone left behind canceled itself in order to transfer it.

Now with a context to see everything in, it all made sense. He knew where he was and the people around him as thoroughly as though this had been Furinkan High School over again.

As the data transferred across unimaginable space he learned a different lesson about how to diminish the feedback pain of a download from a clone, as the inconceivable distance made for a different experience that taught him another valuable aspect of how and what to shift to accomplish the change from crashing accumulation to gentle influx in future downloads of information from his clones.

Now determined he could do away with the backblast entirely with only a little work to refine it, the boy looked around himself, suddenly recognizing everything. The classroom, his classmates all these he already knew, as that had been in previous downloads, and now were in context. This was the day they all were to receive ninja assignments.

His belly also painfully reminded him that he hadn't eaten or drunk anything in days.

Standing up, the boy made two clones. One of those took his seat again while the original Ranma Saotome and the other darted out of the classroom. The original first stopped at the boy's bathroom, to drink out of the faucet there (which had a dozen times the flow rate of the school's drinking fountains) and thus quench his immediate thirst.

Then it was off to get some food. He was starving!

The original charged into the first restaurant he could see, already shouting out his order, only to get chased out by utensils and appliances thrown at him moments later.

Not long after a sweet, demure female Ranma, aka Ranko, bounced into another eatery dressed cutely but modestly in a frilly summer dress (transformed from his usual Chinese silks, and he'd eliminated for the moment from his disguise the ninja headband and shuriken pouch that had somehow been added on his arrival), judged the menu, and then scammed a bit extra out of the male clerk. It didn't work as well as if she'd been fully endowed. Being twelve years old had its drawbacks, and the lack of those stunning curves of his female form was one of them, as without them he had only a fraction of her original wheedling power.

But the pigtailed martial artist was nothing if not adaptable, and if 'cute and sexy' was out for the next few years, 'cute and adorable' worked just as well after a little adapting.

Still, at those prices and his normal appetite, even accounting for scamming extra helpings he'd have to figure out an alternative source of food, fast.

-oOoOo-

Secundus was a clone with a mission.

Granted it was a very dull mission, to occupy a chair fighting hunger pains while the original fed himself. Nevertheless, it was a mission, and Secundus was determined to serve it well. He did dart out briefly to fill up on water, and consequently dim those pains, but after that it was immediately back to chair watch. The original was counting on him!

Of course, Ranma had never dealt well with boredom. So, after nearly fidgeting a hole through his desk, and shaking the floor with rapid foot taps, it was with some degree of gratitude (not just to him, but those sitting near to him) that he heard a commotion at the door as two girls fought over who was through the portal first.

Fighting was interesting, although the insults were not. Ranma, having been insulted all of his life by his pops, who knew every button to press, had to relinquish all hopes of these two when they obviously couldn't think of anything better than, "Forehead" and "Ino-Pig" to call each other.

Naturally he knew them. Not having Naruto's obsessive attraction to the pink-haired girl they bored him. So he ignored them, until the one with pink hair moved to strike him.

"Was there something you wanted?" Secundus casually asked the girl who had his foot planted squarely in her face. He'd not bothered moving anything but the one leg to interrupt her attempted strike.

The girl backed off and sputtered, awake only because he'd chosen to not do more than tap her lightly, more humiliation than injury. Seconds later she'd shaken off the interruption to yell at him, "RANMA! Move! So I can sit next to Sasuke-kun!"

Ranma glanced to his other side where his 'greatest rival' sat with an expression of extreme constipation, then back at the girl baring her fists at him. A quirky smile appeared, gracing Ranma's lips, and he raised an eyebrow cannily. "So, you willing to fight me for it?"

"Try me." Sakura began to crack her knuckles menacingly, a firm look on her face.

Now amused, the clone got up and went over to the blackboard, coming back with a long ruler, a yardstick, which he then took back to stand between his seat and the pink-haired girl. Adopting a kendo stance, he held the ruler like a sword with a mocking expression on his face. "Well, then, bring it on, why doncha?"

Feeling insulted, the pink haired girl charged the silly looking defense only to get whacked to the side hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs, whacked back across the face on the backslash, and then engulfed in a swirl of what felt like near-misses.

To the rest of the class this passed by in a blur as Ranma smote the air around his long time crush, leaving her spinning out of his range, all of her clothing coming apart in tatters, leaving the girl in nothing but her sandals and a pair of bright pink silk panties.

Seeing her condition, Sakura shrieked and covered herself with her arms, leaving the room in a sprint as fast as she could go with her legs jammed together.

Resting the ruler comfortably on one shoulder, Ranma smirked cockily to the remaining fangirl standing there staring. "Ino, if you still want my seat - it's yours. I'm tired of it."

With that, he departed up the steps to the back of the class, having seen a face he wanted to introduce himself to.

Elsewhere, watching through his crystal ball, the Hokage frowned. He'd thought he'd been doing Ranma a favor by placing him on a team with the pink haired girl he admired, letting him have the needed proximity and closeness to see if his crush could be returned.

Now this switch was disturbing. Placing him on a team with a girl he was in conflict with would serve to destabilize the unity they'd been seeking. With the Uchiha as unstable as he was, it was important the other members of that team make up the difference, and if they were at odds with each other already...

Ah, well, it was too late to change things now. Kakashi would just have to manage.

-oOoOo-

Tertius had a different mission from Primus (the original) and Secundus (second clone).

They were all Ranma, so they carried the Latin names for first (Primus) second (Secundus) and third (Tertius) for ease of who was on what mission at a time; and Ranma Saotome learned best when a situation was at its most dire. This test had hardly started yet, and that weird guy had bet on him to lose! And, well, that warranted changing things!

"Hey! Old Man!" He burst into the Hokage's office. "How are ya doin?"

Sarutobi discretely covered his viewing globe with a cloth made for that purpose. "Ah, Ranma. What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in class to meet your new instructor?"

Tertius grinned rather cheekily and cocked his head at the Hokage. "You oughta know. Weren't ya just watching me in that crystal ball thingy ya got there?"

Sarutobi had the grace to blush slightly. "I am only concerned for you, Ranma."

Tertius put his arms behind his head and examined the bookshelves. "So, ya might be interested ta know what I'm here for, right?"

"Yes, Ranma, what is it? And are you the clone, or is it the one waiting in class?"

The clone cocked an eye sideways at the Hokage, still facing the wall casually. "Both. The original is out catching a late breakfast. We slept in this morning."

"Oh," Sarutobi felt slightly put off that he'd not located the real one at all when he'd gone looking.

"Anyway, it's about that Mizuki guy the other day." Ranma went back to examining the wall casually before brushing his hand along a book's spine and facing the Hokage. "Don't you think a teacher who tried to kill me might've done something to affect my grades?"

The wrinkled old man blinked several times at his departed friend's son, before he smiled and lit his pipe, taking a couple of puffs. "Still, Ranma, you passed."

Ranma put both hands down on the Hokage's desk and leaned over it. "Yeah. But I ain't gunna live with a title like 'dead last' just because my classmates don't know my teacher was workin ta sabotage me!"

Sarutobi thought about it for a moment before he agreed, standing up, "Very well, Ranma. You have a good idea. Why don't we go to your school to have you retested right now?"

"Great!" the clone shot the old man a thumbs up.

"Oh, and when you're done reading it, can you return that book you borrowed?" Sarutobi mentioned casually as he swept out of the office.

Tertius gulped, as he thought he'd hidden well how he'd palmed a book from the shelves.

-oOoOo-

Back in the classroom, Secundus had skipped up the steps to the back of the room. That guy who'd placed him in this world hadn't given him much hope in the people he'd been supposed to hang out with, so he was seeking others.

And in that 'this is what happened just before you arrived' show, there'd been this girl standing behind a tree, afraid to approach the guy he was replacing, but obviously she felt some sympathy to him. AND, Ranma knew from this guy's background knowledge that she was the heiress of one of the town's Great Clans.

Well, who better to approach for new techniques? Nobody who should be teaching him would be teaching him according to the entity guy, and this girl might like him enough to be a friend, and ought to have access to more ninja secrets than he did.

Secundus came to a stop beside her seat, laying the yardstick aside. She looked up at him timidly, already blushing out of shyness. But Ranma was boldness personified. He wasn't about to be put off by her shrinking or blushing tendencies.

However, he was also a Saotome, with near terminal Foot-in-Mouth disease. He leaned forward, visions of new ninja techniques dancing in his mind, as he proposed an exchange of jutsu in his own clueless way, "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours."

"EEEP!!"

Instant candy-apple red glow around the poor girl and she shrank horrified away from him. But his smile was so genuine and comforting... she began pushing her fingers together. "Ano... I...."

Her face practically hit the desk as she mumbled, mortified, "I've already seen yours."

Missing out completely on the girl obviously wanting to die on the spot, Ranma conceded that he'd used the Shadow Clone in that room just that morning, but didn't think that was a worry. She still didn't know how to do it herself. So he boasted, "Hey! That's no problem. But," here he leaned closer, "wouldn't you like to handle them yourself?"

It was a wonder of the universe why the girl didn't die of a terminal faint right there. Blood trailed from her nose, and she wiped it away rather quickly. Not daring to look at him, she mumbled softly, "I... I...." swallowing hard, realizing in the cold depths of her tummy that this was her one chance and could never come again, she met his gaze firmly, forcing a smile in spite of hardly being able to see for the butterflies escaping her stomach. "I'd like that very much, Ranma-kun."

As if that brief effort was as much as she could muster, the girl shrank back down into a near-ball, curled up on her chair, a shy almost-smile in place, staring down, waiting for him to reply.

"Great!" Secundus shouted, drawing the attention of the entire class. "You want to go first?"

She stared up at him, horrified, blurting out through her deep cherry blush, "Not here!"

Ranma blinked, confused, then shrugged. It didn't matter to him where she wanted to trade ninja secrets, so long as he learned new fighting techniques. "Okay, then where?"

Quietly, shyly, Hinata stood and took his hand, leading him out of the classroom. Most of the boys were confused at her shy smile, but half of girls were already convinced this was deadly gossip.

-oOoOo-

Tertius brought the Hokage into the classroom, trailing ANBU, and noticed that Secundus wasn't there. Then he noted that Hinata girl was gone as well. Oh? So that meant the plan for trading the Shadow Clone to her in exchange for other ninja techniques could well be underway. Well, that was good.

Any way of expanding his ninja skills had to be sought if he was going to beat this game and become Hokage!

Speaking of that, Tertius had been created to put another whole plan in motion. The guy who'd dropped him here had already explained that his teacher, Kakashi, wouldn't actually teach him anything, and his teammates would both hold him down.

So... why would he want to be on that team?

Answer real simple: he didn't. No, he'd dance around that obstacle if possible by getting as much changed as soon as he could, in hopes of landing on an entirely different one; maybe even getting a teacher who'd actually teach him, and teammates who wouldn't hate him. As far as he knew, there wasn't a worse team in town for him to be on, so any random chance gave him a better opportunity.

Even if he got on the second worst team for him that was still a step up. Thus his reason for retaking the test, and even getting in a fight with that pink haired girl.

The Hokage wasted no time, collecting academy teachers who in turn collected the original Ranma (already on his way back from a satisfying breakfast repast), sat him down near the front of the room, and began to administer the exam to him. There were three parts to the test, and the written part came first. Staring at the piece of paper he'd been given, Ranma read over the questions. Although he was twelve in body now, he'd slept through an extra five years of classes than this Naruto kid had, and despite all the interruptions and training trips, had managed to pull off passing grades.

Having that, plus the scraps of ninja lore the kid he was replacing did, the former teenager felt he could do ok. But ok wasn't the point. He wanted to score as high as possible so as to eliminate any association with his old ranking, and hopefully force a new team assignment.

That was why, when the teachers grabbed Primus, the original Ranma, Tertius the clone had snuck away into the teacher library and transformed himself into a spare chair. He watched as the academy instructors came in and noted which test they selected, and when they were gone transformed back and snagged the answer key.

Reading that and dispelling himself transferred to Primus, who was taking the test, accurate knowledge of most of the answers. Due to bad filing, he'd grabbed the wrong answer key. But enough of the questions were the same to offer substantial help. It was enough, along with his own and Naruto's combined knowledge, to score a solid eighty five percent. Not the highest grade in class, but enough to place him ahead of most of the pack.

Next came the physical portion, which Ranma aced with ease. Throwing kunai was child's play to a boy who'd been training since before he could walk. Shuriken were simple to the point of absurdity. While his pops did not like weapons, they'd still trained with virtually all of them, mostly to learn how they handled so they could better defeat them, but it was still a rare occurrence that Ranma came across a weapon he couldn't use.

Passing the ninja tools half of the physical portion of his test with full marks, and with ease, the Hokage was already impressed by Ranma. Next came sparring, something at which Naruto had previously scored one of the academy's lowest recorded grades. A chunin who would like for him to keep that shameful designation got into the ring, and went flying out moments later. Twice more he entered, the first time tumbling clear, and the last being carried out on a stretcher unconscious.

Ranma was no slouch at hand-to-hand fighting. He'd made it look easy, scoring as much as it was possible to on that part of the test.

The last portion was testing the basic three ninja techniques. Ranma could already perform a more than adequate Replacement long before he'd ever heard of this world. Shapechange was something they took for a standard disguise skill, no problem (and earned him high marks for how easily it might fool an enemy - if they only knew!), while Shadow Clone was an even better substitute for normal ones, and his much improved chakra control did nothing but help him there. He got awarded top marks in that portion as well.

Iruka tapped his clipboard at the end of this, turned to the Hokage and smiled. "With these grades, Mr Saotome could actually make Rookie of the Year. Counting extra credit points, he's outpaced the Uchiha by a decent margin."

Sarutobi kept his face carefully neutral, though his gaze was on the Uchiha, who scowled darkly on overhearing the news. The Uchiha's fanclub also looked uncertain, milling about unsure of how they ought to be reacting to Iruka's announcement, as it shook several of their fundamental assumptions. They'd only ever wanted Sasuke because he was the best.

Now they were being forced to reassess that foundation of their loyalty to the Uchiha.

While the Hokage was glad for Ranma, there would be repercussions from the council, and potential backlash for Ranma, if he gave him Sasuke's place so easily. Taking his pipe from his mouth, the Hokage declared, "But we'd already given that award out. It is not enough to beat a previous champion on points. You ought to meet him in the ring if you want his title. Ranma, are you up for this?"

Honestly, he expected the boy to shout enthusiastic acceptance, conceal apprehensive moments, then lose. Sasuke Uchiha was a terrific fighter for his age group. Instead, Ranma showed neither explosive enthusiasm nor apprehension, only confidence as he accepted the challenge, which was to take place before the entire class.

The two newly minted genin stepped into a chalk circle drawn on the playground, and Iruka shouted for the match to start. The Uchiha rushed forward...

... then flew twenty yards backwards into the nearby forest, smashing into trees and landing unconscious on the ground after bumping into close to a dozen branches on his way down.

Medics appeared, carrying the Last Uchiha's broken body out on a stretcher.

The class, the instructors, even the Hokage were dumbfounded.

Ranma smirked. All it had taken was a single kick! That guy was nowhere near the level of Shampoo, and he'd done much the same to the amazon when they'd first met and she'd underestimated him. Of course, unlike this kid, she could actually take the hit.

The Hokage realized he'd stopped breathing only when his pipe had gone out. Instantly shucking his shocked pose, he relit the device and concealed a proud smile. "Well, Ranma. There can be no doubt you are Rookie of the Year of your class. Congratulations."

Silently, Sarutobi was considering this further. Changes would be needed to the upcoming team assignments. If the Uchiha had beaten Ranma, the status quo would have been kept and they might've worked well on a team together. However, with Ranma having defeated him, Sasuke would desire a rematch, and perhaps extend his obsession for revenge if that failed to go the way he wanted.

No, smoldering resentment on the part of the Uchiha was a foregone conclusion, over the lost title if nothing else, and with Ranma recently at odds with Sasuke and the Haruno girl both, it was time to shuffle things around to put him on another team.

Turning away, he spoke, "Iruka, instead of announcing team assignments, have the jonin instructors meet me in my office."

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

Before anyone asks, Ranma's 'Never Hit Girls' approach was left behind in Nerima as one of his problems for Naruto to overcome.

In fact, rather a lot of his faults regarding women got left there with him not even being aware of it. After all, the central problem Ranma had was how to resolve the fiancee mess, and it just wouldn't be the same without those faults complicating it. It just wouldn't be a true test without them.

So his well-deserved phobia of women is gone, even though he doesn't realize it yet.


	3. Chapter 3

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Three

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

"Could it be that Sasuke isn't all he ought to be?" one fangirl asked of another.

"Well... I'm sure when his bloodline activates..." another temporized.

"I dunno," a third was shaking her head. "Would that even do it!"

"Of course!" the second declared, offended the other fangirl could doubt. "Having an active Sharingan automatically makes you an Immortal-God-King. The only reason a clan of them didn't rule the entire universe was one of their early members copied the 'Sucking On Your Own Testicles' no jutsu and taught it to the rest. They'd been so busy practicing it ever since they didn't have time for conquering the galaxy!"

The other two looked uncomfortable at this declaration. "I heard that technique had been banned," one of them said.

"An Uchiha can do whatever he wants - it's in the village charter." She showed them a copy and with a couple of "Wow, you're right!" declarations their doubts departed at last.

"Wait! Testicles?" One of the girls stopped, turning to the others. "What about the female Uchiha?"

"The men cast unbeatable illusions to make the women think ass was their favorite flavor, then had them use 'Ass Sucking' no jutsu all of the time. It worked out well for everyone," the second brightly chirruped.

Her other two friends started oozing away from the girl speaking.

"What?" She declared, "What's not to like about that? So long as you think you like it, you like it, right? And, unlike chocolate, it's always cheap and readily available."

"Uh, I gotta go," one of the others sweatdropped.

"Yeah, me too," the other declared, also sweatdropping.

"I'll go with you!" the problem fangirl declared.

"NO!!!" the others burst out in horrified chorus. "We're going... somewhere you can't. Sorry."

And with that, they were gone, leaving one puzzled fangirl behind.

-oOoOo-

Itachi Uchiha glared at his mug, filling it with coffee. They'd made a brief stop in a nowhere village to clean some windows for some quick ready cash, and it had taken mere moments to glance at them all, so now they were done. As he sipped he considered his partner, who was out practicing in a field with his sword.

A bolt of lightning split the heavens as his partner posed, and quoted, "For it so falls out that what we have we prize not worth whilst we enjoy it. But being lacked and lost? Then we rack the value, then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whilst it was ours."

Tatewaki Kuno, aged thirteen, posed staring down the shimmering steel blade of his chakra-stealing katana while the air was split by another bolt of lightning.

The Blue Thunder of Mist's Seven Swordsmen then proceeded to lash out with that Blue Thunder attack of his, splintering trees at a distance of twenty yards or more with dozens of air pressure strikes from his katana while bolts of frightening electrical power lashed out in all directions from the boy, devastating the field.

Itachi yawned. He could see where some thought that impressive, but for entertainment it had nothing on the 'Sucking On Your Own Testicles' no jutsu.

-oOoOo-

Back in Konoha Secundus said nothing as Hinata led him to a private room in a hotel. He figured she didn't want her family knowing about them trading ninja techniques, which made sense what with all of the town hating him just for being alive. He could even agree with her strategy. The longer those who'd object to their mutual jutsu exchanges were kept ignorant that he and Hinata were training each other, the more they could do to mutually support each other and the better ninja they'd turn out to be!

When she'd closed and locked the door he felt nothing but the excited anticipation of being taught something truly impressive!

Then, when she'd lifted her shirt, his eyes kind of drifted downward, latching on to those two globes exposed and bouncing with the motion that revealed them. He'd been prepared for all sorts of sensations on beholding those remarkable orbs. Shock was among them, surprise another as that wasn't what he'd meant at all...

Any second now the martial artist was prepared to have the standard reaction to a naked woman kick in. When they were naked girls were at their most dangerous. His panic reflex in that department was very well trained. He'd be freaking out any second now.

Any second now.

A thin trail of blood leaked down from one of Ranma's nostrils.

Hinata smiled, feeling very flattered that he couldn't stop staring. Many of her self doubts fled as the obvious appreciation mounted. Then, once she was free of her own clothes, she moved to make good on Ranma's promise that she could handle his goods.

-oOoOo-

Sasuke brooded.

This was nothing new. If that boy were to smile half the female population of Konoha would faint in delight, while certain others would take it as a sign of the apocalypse.

Sasuke was after the village record for the longest continuous brood, and had two years more to go to get that title. He wouldn't call it off this early if he could help it. Still, right then he had more reason to brood than his usual set of: his brother, his family, his pet goldfish, the breakfast cereal getting too soggy as he ate it, or the fact that his underpants were several sizes too tight, as he'd never thought to buy more since the day his mom died and the old ones were not only getting rather thin and worn, but they pinched something awful! (he'd had to slit the cloth up both sides so it was only elastic holding them together).

No, that morning he had acquired a whole new reason to brood that had nothing to do with being too embarrassed to go into a store with female clerks to buy new underpants and perhaps save himself from singing soprano in the near future.

Someone had beaten him.

Not just beaten him, they'd beaten him like he was a little girl, like a rented gong, and they'd done it right before the Hokage and their entire graduating class.

This was intolerable! Sasuke had gone in to that match expecting to be fighting a dead last who'd somehow fluked or cheated his way to a better grade; then been soundly defeated. He couldn't even recall being hit, only rushing forward, then waking up in the hospital while medics urgently discussed the reduced blood flow to his constricted privates!

Apparently the multiple contusions, abrasions, and broken bones were nothing to compare to the emergency due to fact that his wearing six year old briefs had endangered his ability to restore his clan.

-oOoOo-

Ranma had a determination to be the best drilled into him from his earliest childhood. He also had an absurdly keen mind (when he actually used it, which his father had trained him not to do except on martial arts and challenges). His ability to analyze foreign techniques, break them down, duplicate them to assimilate and flawlessly incorporate them into his own style, then improve them, was phenomenal - without peer in his world.

Or, likely, this one.

Privately, he was thinking this Sharingan thingy he'd been told about seemed overly cheap. Since it involved no skill it seemed a very poor rip-off of his own ability to learn techniques, giving for free what he'd achieved through natural born intellect and paid for through vast effort, and in some cases quite literal blood, sweat and tears.

Ranma was quite proud of his achievements, and felt some justification for resting on his laurels much of the rest of the time, having already proved to himself and others that he'd accomplished his main goal in life: becoming one of the best martial artists of his generation. Being willing to put himself in ridiculous situations to train, he felt he deserved to relax a bit during the in between times.

However, currently his tactical genius was fully engaged, treating this whole scenario as a challenge - moreover, a rigged one that the contest organizers had intended he lose. Unlike in his own world, he wasn't working to keep the status quo. He wasn't on top of his heap and only looking to fend off challengers so he could keep his position. No, here he was the one at the bottom looking to climb up. He needed to change the status quo to become the best ninja of the village.

Of course, that didn't mean he wouldn't still enjoy stealing quiet moments now and again, where he could get them. And, having accomplished his immediate goals: getting regraded and put on another team, he was taking one of those now, resting on the academy roof watching the clouds go by.

Only until his moment of peaceful repose got rather abruptly interrupted.

He heard the footsteps approaching, but closed his eyes, hoping he could ignore whoever it was. However, when the person came to a stop beside him, then tipped his drink over with a delicate foot, spilling the icy water over his body and triggering a change, he opened his eyes to glare at the offender.

"Nabiki, ya look different as a twelve-year-old."

"So do you," the middle Tendo daughter smirked down on the currently redheaded girl who had been a guest of her family for most of a year.

Ranma's eyes flashed to the ninja headband the other was using as a hairband to keep her much longer cut out of her face. "So yer a ninja, huh? And what's with the hair, anyway? The Nabiki I remember always wore it above her shoulders. Yers looks more like Kasumi's."

The confident mercenary Tendo pulled up a convenient stool and sat down on it. "This was our mother's style. We all wore it while we were younger. Kasumi still does. But I shortened mine when I was in middle school." She flicked a lock. "I guess I'm not that old yet. So for now I guess I'll let it stay as is it. I don't have anyone to cut it, anyway."

"Hm," Ranko barked out a short, noncommittal grunt before closing her eyes again.

Nabiki cocked an eyebrow at this response. "So," she prompted, leaning forward, folding her arms on top of her knees and tapping a foot, "do you know who else made it?"

"Nah," Ranko answered, "you're the first I've met." She opened an eye to examine the slightly older girl. "How 'bout you? Did any of your family come along?"

Nabiki shook her head. "Not in the week I've been here. I had the joy of watching the goof ball you're replacing, though. He was amusing."

The girl expected this to elicit questions, and was quite surprised when the redhead stayed totally silent, almost ignoring her. Her grin faltered a bit.

"So, Ranma..." Nabiki got cut off.

"Nabiki? Whatever ya want, you can forget it. The guy who dropped me here told me that some of the others arriving would have mission goals that conflict with mine, and frankly your name leapt to the front of my mind! You've always been selling me out to get whatever ya could in return, an I DON'T think that's changed now!"

The middle Tendo girl retreated in her seat behind raised arms, startled by the blue-eyed glare that was driving her back.

Just as suddenly she counterattacked, leaning forward and almost shouting, "Ranma! Look, I know I caused you troubles, and I'm sorry, but I'm out of my element here and need some support, and you're the only person I can turn to! The guy who gave me MY briefing said that some of the people we'd meet that we knew from home wouldn't even recognize us! That they wouldn't remember the old world at all! So I don't have a whole lot of people to turn to just now. You're the only one I've met, and anyone else might not remember me!"

Seeing the redhead's disbelieving glare, Nabiki narrowed her gaze and hissed, "Look, you don't have to like it, but I think we were put here to help each other. I don't know about you, living off the land and all, but I'd give my left breast for Kasumi's cooking and cleaning skills right now. I never appreciated before what it meant to have her always around, taking care of things. Now that I can't afford expensive takeout, I'm living on cup ramen, and my place is a pig sty. I always thought of myself as a clean person; after all, my room and things were always tidy. I guess I'd never realized how much of that I owed to Kasumi always following me around, picking up after me and straightening up."

She leveled a glare at him, lest he laugh. "I'm on my last pair of clean panties now. My bed sheets started out dirty, and are starting to smell, but I don't even know how to clean them without a washing machine - which my apartment complex doesn't have."

The girl sighed, folded her arms over her tummy and leaned forward. "Anyway, Saotome, I know the way you eat. I also know the orphan allowance, and the pay rate of genin, and so I know you'll be hurting for food real soon. What do you say we make a deal? We share an apartment. That saves on rent. Then we can split cleaning and cooking duties. Sound fair?"

The redhead cocked her head at the slightly older girl. "I ain't gunna be yer live-in maid, Nabiki."

'Caught!' the mercenary thought guiltily, then hastily amended her terms. "That wasn't what I was thinking at all, Saotome." She idly waved away his concerns. "I was just hoping we could pool our resources because, you know, in most ways two can live as cheaply as one."

She tried to sound bright and hopeful.

Ranko snorted, rolling to face away from her. "Sorry, Nabiki. Every time I've seen you 'pool' anything, the whole resource drains into your pockets."

Silently acknowledging this to be true, Nabiki still fumed that the pigtailed martial artist was choosing THIS moment to grow a backbone! He couldn't have picked a more inconvenient time, as she REALLY needed his help on a few things.

So abandoning the one tack as fruitless, for now, she switched targets. "Okay, Saotome. Let's leave that alone for now. How could a girl go about getting your help on bringing her up to speed on her martial art?"

The pigtailed girl rolled back around to face her, eyes flat and face cold. "Oh? So NOW you want to know martial arts? What brought about this change?"

Silently admitting she had a point to that frosty tone, Nabiki answered warmly and honestly, baring some of her troubles to the somewhat younger girl, "I'm a ninja now, Ranma. Okay, back in our world I got endless use out of playing the 'innocent bystander' card - honorable types like you wouldn't touch me, and you'd protect me from the dishonorable ones. Then my family could always be counted on to protect me from bullies or... people I'd offended. But that's not true here. Civilians are just easier targets than other ninja around the elemental countries. That was quite a shocker, and came as an unpleasant part of my briefing. They dropped me in a week before the tests and it was as much as I could do to pass them. I'd never studied anything so hard in my life, and that was knowing what was on the test."

Ranko actually cocked a semi-interested eye open. "And they didn't give ya the skills of the person ya'd be replacing?"

Nabiki gulped, then admitted, "They did, and told me beforehand that she was one of the anonymous students that was fated to fail either the academy test, or the follow up given by our jonin instructor. They didn't tell me which. I got through the one - just barely, but I need your help to be confident of passing the other."

Ranko considered that for a moment, staring up to the sky thoughtfully. "The guy didn't tell me about there being a test by our team leader. So I guess I owe ya a bit for that - IF it turns out to be true. See ya later, Nabiki."

Seeing the other girl getting up to jump off the roof to escape this conversation, Nabiki blurted, "Ranma, on the day I stop being an active duty ninja my heart will stop, and they won't permit it to be restarted!"

"That's your obstacle. What's your goal?" Ranko asked, eyes narrowed to read her.

Nabiki swallowed, then glanced away, unwilling to answer the question.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Ranko confirmed, backing away. "You ARE here to sabotage me, aren't ya?"

The middle Tendo girl gasped, then quickly pivoted around to face him and tell him that was NOT the case, but the pigtailed prodigy had already vanished.

The girl pouted, growling to herself (not daring to speak it aloud), 'How do you tell someone one of your goals is to never let anyone know your true goals? I fail automatically if I inform anyone what any of my mission goals are - I can't even confirm if they guess them!'

-oOoOo-

Secundus stumbled down a street, a dazed look in his eyes and a glazed smile stuck over his face as he tried to make his way back to the ninja academy for team assignments; his expression the blankness of one whose mind had vanished.

Ranma's internal dialog basically amounted to babbling in horror, pushed to the proverbial mental breaking point under the weight of what he had done. Ranma had a personal code, a bizarre and oft-distorted one, but a code of conduct all the same, and treating women right was one of the highest commandments on it.

Hinata purred as she clutched his side, walking alongside him, returning for the same reason he was. However, all her little happy noises she kept making continually derailed his mental dialog's trying to shout in horror, as her happiness and not having been treated right were mutually exclusive. But what he had done was, by his code, as obviously out of bounds as it was possible to get, so by definition 'not right'. But she was happy, so... and so on around and around in circles until finally caused a rational voice to surface among all his myriad confused suppositions.

His first rational thought in some while was to suspect that some love dust, potion, spell or magical trinket had somehow influenced his behavior, as had, regrettably, occurred quite frequently in the past.

This thought kicked off a whole array of others, but almost instantly resulted in his keen tactical mind sparking to full brilliance and beginning to analyze the situation with every tool at his disposal, picking apart the scene with a thoroughness and adaptive creativity that was downright frightening.

Ranma Saotome learned best when a situation was at its most dire. Ranma had already learned how to convert aspects of his chi training over to that magic stuff through the scrolls that entity guy had left behind. He'd also adapted techniques in mid-combat before.

One part of the 'sixth sense' the more accomplished martial artists were famous for was an ability to sense chi, particularly the powerful chi of an attacker. There were other parts to that, but that was what his tactical mind seized upon in that moment, adapting it as he'd already learned how to do with other parts of his training, and as suddenly as that Ranma Saotome created a new technique to detect magic by sensing for its energies.

That would have been an incredibly useful technique back in Nerima, capable of saving him from countless ambushes, accidents and outright acts of trickery. However, the trouble with that was neither he nor Hinata had anything at all magical about them save for their own natural energy stores, magnified by training. So, denied that one solution to his problem, his awoken genius continued to search for others undeterred, just as though one adapted move had failed to win a fight for him. He just kept searching for one that would.

After running through exhaustive lists of possibilities, from possession to an extreme sense defying illusion, he could find no evidence to support those either.

Finally he'd exhausted the list, narrowing it down to a likely possibility. But it was confusing, because on the one level, Secundus both knew what had gone wrong... and he didn't.

Staring at Hinata in surprise as she'd gotten undressed, waiting for a panic attack that never arrived, his long-neglected hormones had a chance to kick in - and he was a teenage boy. Sure, he'd joked to Akane about the feminine body holding no secrets for him, he did wear one half the time after all. But, as most boys in that age range could tell you, some succulent female flesh was nowhere near enough. The appetite almost always outstripped available supply. And it wasn't like his hormones had been happy with what they'd been getting.

The boy both shuddered and grinned goofily as the word 'stripped' crossed him mind. As if in some sort of psychic harmony with him, Hinata grinned wickedly in satisfaction at her own internal thoughts at the same time.

And, he reflected, his shattered brain still working on connecting events, while his mind had been caught up in expecting a panic attack to hit, those hormones had taken charge for the first time in his fairly short life. That was the part he understood. The part he didn't was...

Why did the panic attack never arrive?

Suddenly he had no more time to consider the question, as his sixth sense for danger warned him just in time to snatch Hinata up in his arms and disappear in a leap - only to be immediately forced to perform a Replacement mid air, with a dumpster getting hit mid-air by a ton of weapons on chains in his place.

"Mousse!!" Hinata cried, shocked out of her own internal reminisces.

"You know him?" Ranma cried out to the girl in his arms in shock.

Hinata looked up at him, startled. "Yes. He's my cousin. How do you?"

Landing on a rooftop and looking at his attacker for the very first time in this world, Ranma noticed the blind duck boy was missing his glasses...

Then the pigtailed boy glanced down, comparing, and confirming a suspicion. Hinata and Mousse somehow had the same white eyes, except the veins on the duck-boy's temples were bulging. Now, wasn't there something Naruto had known about that?

Whatever it was, wasn't coming to the surface easily, and he didn't have time to dredge for it, as he suddenly had to dodge another incoming flurry of swords and chains from the long haired boy attacking them.

Only Ranma found himself blocking with his arms and reinforcing his body with a chi shield as the attack proved to be almost impossible to dodge, and he'd been too startled at its accuracy to perform another Replacement. Even as the onslaught struck he was analyzing clues and deducing what had changed.

In a heartbeat he had it. It wasn't difficult. The 'Normal' Mousse, the one he knew, was only middling accurate, adopting a 'Spray and Pray' philosophy to make up for his inability to really see his targets accurately, sending out wide barrages of tools covering the whole area around his target on the hopes that, out of all of them, some would hit.

However, this Mousse had deadly, pinpoint accuracy on every attack. The barrages were still there, but they were concentrated and well planned, focusing more devastating power on the expected target, as well as cutting off all anticipated routes of escape. And his sight was now clear enough to be picking out subtle nuances of stances that helped him judge where his target would be, even after an attempted dodge.

If his former rival had showed up painted bright yellow and with a pair of trumpet players following him around that would've been less of a difference to Ranma's fine-tuned senses. To him it was as different as a two year old banging on a drum and a refined concert pianist tickling the ivories would be to a fine music aficionado.

It was an easy guess that the new eyes made up the difference. Even with his glasses, the old Mousse had been half blind. Maybe perfect vision was his signing bonus?

Regardless, it was enough to bump him up several levels on the threat-o'-meter.

When Secundus landed, he put Hinata down carefully, as he didn't want to get popped while carrying her at high speed through the air. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, he could fight the ordinary Mousse while carrying a damsel if he had to. But this new one was waaay different, and deserved his concentrated attention.

Stepping away from the girl, focused on his rival, confirmed that he was the target anyway, so no point in involving the girl in what was not her fight - the guy was after him, after all. And, quite frankly, Ranma was eager to see what new stuff his old rival could do, and what the duck boy had learned when he'd gotten dumped in this world.

All these realizations and evaluations happened lightning fast. The fight was barely two seconds long, and one flaw of Mousse's that HADN'T changed was his need to reset a bit after each volley attack, rewinding his chains, although even that seemed to a bit different... more efficient. A touch faster, not like it had ever taken him more than a second anyway.

No, this guy deserved a much higher ranking on the Saotome threat-o'-meter, at least until he could figure out new patterns or weaknesses to his attacks.

When the next barrage came Secundus was ready, and even then got caught unprepared by the way Mousse had anticipated him. It looking like that 'seeking out patterns' was going two ways. He'd have to be more careful of this Mousse than he'd thought! And he shouldn't have gotten careless, treating him as though he were still half blind.

"What?!" Ranma shouted out with disdain as a distraction as he dodged half the latest barrage, blocking all the rest with a pair of kunai in his hands, one or two still striking off his chi shield regardless of this effort. "Hey Mousse, ain't ya gunna yell somethin about 'yer darling Shampoo' er nothin? Why so silent on yet attack? How'd ya get away from Cologne, anyway?"

Mousse snarled and resumed his assault, forcing Ranma to concentrate on dodging just to stay intact, and eventually pulling another Replacement to get behind the guy and out of the latest field of fire.

Mousse shot back chains as though he could tell in an instant where Ranma had gone, like he'd even practiced facing opponents in three hundred and sixty degrees!

But it was the duck-boy's words that really struck Ranma. "Hair care products and how I smell have nothing to do with this fight, whoever you are! I can see the evidence with my own eyes! You have defiled the Heir of the Hyuga Clan! For this you must DIE!!"

'He doesn't know who I am?' Ranma froze just long enough in shock to be hit by a barrage of chained weapons, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

-oOoOo-

Back in the classroom, Primus, the original Ranma, got struck by the dispersing clone's memories and had his head thrown back as his nose exploded in a massive gush of blood.

Recovering himself (and silently amazed at what Hinata had done with Secundus), the boy managed to staunch the flow of blood. Ignoring the stares all around him, he raised a hand and asked the teacher, "Hey, Iruka! Do you know a guy with white eyes and long black hair who wears robes all of the time? Hinata said he was her cousin."

The academy teacher smiled. "Yes, Ranma. That would be Mousse, a prodigy in the Branch Family Hyuga. Her father and his were twin brothers. He was last year's Rookie of the Year, and is quite famous for his amazing fighting prowess. How do you know him?"

"Jerk just killed one of my clones," Primus mumbled, wiping away the last evidence of his nosebleed.

Looking back up at the teacher, he smiled charmingly. "Hey, Iruka? Since we all have to wait for the Hokage to get done with this meeting he's in anyway, why don't you help us review some chakra exercises and stuff?"

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

Some remember, some don't. Why? Because with some characters I've got to avoid the sense of camaraderie that comes from a "we're all in this together" sensation. Besides, Ranma needed some threats and rivals, and the Naruto-verse has too many uncaring angst machines. It could stand to see a few switched out for a bit of color.


	4. Chapter 4

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Four

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

Bakamoto made the Sharingan into the ultimate cheat mode. Then, if he ever came up with a halfway reasonable explanation for why an entire CLAN of these people didn't rule all that they surveyed, I've never heard of it.

So, I gave him an explanation. And until he comes up with one I like better, the Uchiha clan will remain contortionist perverts. But, ok, I can focus in on making sure it's Sasuke, not the entire clan, that suffers humiliation in the future.

Well, mostly. There are some things that are so hilarious I've just gotta do, that might be interpreted by some as against the Uchiha clan, but really they're not!

-oOoOo-

Floating a leaf in the classroom (and unable to get the thing to stop wobbling), Nabiki spent some time fretting visibly, trying to contain her reaction and then fretting as she was unable to do that, torn as she was by a desperate hope.

She was the dope, the dead last, or nearly so. They didn't release the actual grades, so she didn't know for sure, only that she'd barely passed. Ranma, on the other hand, was the class top rookie.

It was easy to see where her hopes kept going. According to information she knew, they frequently made a habit of pairing up the lowest and highest graded graduating genin onto a single team.

She could be assured of passing any ninja test so long as her grade was tied to Ranma's performance. She could be confident of that. If Ranma was on her team, they would pass whatever test the instructor gave them and her heart wouldn't stop.

She could be sure of that.

Ranma, for his part, was sitting at a desk with his shoes off and hands splayed out before him, a leaf floating over the tip of every toe and finger - and one on his nose as well. They were each spinning in different directions and at different speeds, all deliberately controlled in clockwork fashion by the world's premier martial artist as he practiced his chakra control.

Actually, Nabiki could make out three different colors of energy in use, seven of each color among the twenty-one leaves he was floating. So she suspected that he was practicing with chi as well as chakra and... something else. Maybe a mixture between them?

She wished she knew more about this chakra stuff. She only barely knew how to use it. Ranma probably had the physics of it committed to muscle memory and the exact definition of the stuff, its composition and uses, memorized by heart.

He was like that with the martial arts stuff.

Ranma was just about to add a second leaf floating above one he already had, to see if he could levitate two over the same digit, one atop the other, each spinning a separate way, when the door opened and the jonin entered, the Hokage's meeting obviously concluded.

Students were trying to pick out their future instructors among a sea of unfamiliar faces when Soun walked in. He'd shaved off his mustache and he'd somehow gotten the same white eyes as Hinata and Mousse, but it was him, alright.

"Yo! Mr. Tendo!" Ranma shot up a hand and waved gladly.

"Daddy?" Nabiki raised her head, then her face erupted in gladness. "DADDY!!" she went rocketing across the room to engulf the man in a hug.

Hiashi Hyuga stayed stony, stiff and silent as the little girl hugged his chest, crying, "Oh! You don't know how good it is to see you, daddy! I was..."

Nabiki cut off as it registered on her mind that her father wasn't hugging her back. Looking up in a moment of doubt, she saw the stoic expression of a man who doesn't know what is going on, but was determined to pretend it wasn't happening to him.

'He doesn't remember me,' she thought, with a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her tum.

"Sorry, my mistake," Nabiki choked back tears, faking a laugh. "You look so much like him you could be twins!"

Hiashi's eyebrow twitched.

Iruka cleared his throat at the head of class, holding a newly delivered paper in his hands. "If I could have your attention, please?" the chunin asked, hoping he was doing that poor Nabiki girl a kindness by drawing attention to himself so she could escape her embarrassment. "I have the team assignments. If you would all take your seats?"

Nabiki was able to escape the awkward situation in the general rush to get seated.

"Right," Iruka looked down and began reading, secretly glad Nabiki had taken advantage of the opportunity he'd presented. "There are thirty graduating genin this year, so that will put you evenly divided on ten teams. Team One will be composed of Rumiko Takahashi, Masashi Kishimoto and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto. Your jonin instructor will be Gainax."

"Well, that's going to be an interesting team," Nabiki whispered to the girl beside her in an effort to conceal her own distress while she wiped away her tears. "A girl who hates boys, and the only boy who's more of an Uchiha fangirl than Ino and Sakura are, along with a guy who tried to commit suicide right before the genin exam."

"Well, their teacher is very popular," the girl beside her whispered back.

As two boys and a girl got up to follow out a jonin with jiggly boobs, Iruka read on, "Team Two will be Hinata Hyuga, Ranma Saotome..."

"YES!!"

The entire class looked at where Hinata had leapt up out of her chair and pumped a fist in joy. Blushing, the girl sank back down into her seat.

Hiashi scowled, sending a glare the Hokage's direction. He'd fought against that long and hard, but ultimately had not prevailed. But had he known this reaction was coming, he'd have fought harder.

Smiling, Iruka continued, unaware that Nabiki had practically risen out of her seat in her own eagerness and anticipation of being the third member of this team, "And Ino Yamanaka. Your jonin sensei will be..."

Once more the teacher got interrupted by a window flying open and great big balls (which were somehow immediately strung from the ceiling) exploding in confetti and celebratory streamers announcing, "Welcome Jonin Sensei!"

Ranma suddenly felt something, and leaned back sharply in his chair to kick a rampaging snowman in the face just as it was about to cut his pigtail off with a pair of clippers. When the snowman fell back and apart, inside it revealed a man in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses.

Iruka coughed into his fist. "Yes, allow me to introduce your jonin sensei, Madara Kuno."

"Kuno, huh?" Ranma leaned over the prone figure of the Furinkan High principal.

Principal Kuno sprang to his feet, and while trying to cut Ranma's hair started saying, "First ting, I NOO bein da Mizukage! So put dat tot outta yo minds. Me no settin da Kyubi on Konoha, no sar! An I no bein dis immortal head o da Uchiha clan edder! Mebbe I givin you a haircut or two, but I no being no traitor what been infiltrating dis town for da tird time or nuddin. Certainly I do nuddin like makin a criminal organization ta rule da world! Me jus a humble, everyday school teacher, ya! Ain nuddin suspicious about da big Kahuna!"

"Stop tryin ta cut my hair, ya freak!"

"HA! HA! Da Big Kahuna be habbin a genin test fo you tree! You got ten hours ta find da coconut wit a 'Pass da Genin Test' coupon in it! An Da Big Kahoona be fightin ya da whole way!"

As the fight moved outside, Nabiki hid her crushing despair and disappointment by turning to their academy teacher and asking dryly, "So, did the village of Hidden Mist suffer a war over strange haircuts recently?"

Iruka blinked. "Yes. How did you know about that? That's fairly obscure. It started out with some grumblings against the bloodline clans, but that quickly got swamped under by the decree of buzzcuts for boys and bowlcuts for girls across the entire country."

Nabiki turned a droll eye on the Hokage. "Tell me, do we have a problem with traitors infiltrating this town?"

Sarutobi blinked, honestly surprised as he took the pipe out of his mouth to answer. "No. Why do you ask?"

"We're doomed!" Nabiki's head struck her folded arms as she wept over her desk.

Sarutobi smiled assuringly. "Oh, pay no attention to Madara. He just likes to joke like that."

"Team Three," Iruka cleared his throat, "Gregg Sharp, Celeste Byrd and Jared Ornstead under the jonin instructor Kosuke Fujishima."

"Team Four," Iruka continued, "Nabiki Tendo..."

Nabiki groaned from where she had her head down on her desk. 'Figures the team with the number associated with Death is the one I'm on.'

"... Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha," Iruka rubbed his ears as he was interrupted by a fangirl's squeal, along with several groans from disappointed ones. "Under the jonin sensei Kakashi Hatake."

"Team Five," Iruka rushed on, "Hung Nguyen, Howard the Grum, and..."

-oOoOo-

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!! MOUSSE! YOU DID NOT APPEAR FOR... training?"

Gai snatched up the smoldering, broken form of his student. "MOUSSE?!! What has gone wrong? What happened? Who did this to you?"

"Hi..." the burned up boy coughed out a cloud of black smoke. "Hin... Hinata-chan..."

-oOoOo-

Slightly later, on top of the school building, Nabiki stared at her teacher unimpressed. The guy was over three hours late, but with all of the changes to the team structure worked out in a meeting, he'd been bang on time - minus attending the meeting.

So this Kakashi guy had told the wrong students he was unimpressed with them. Iruka had corrected him, and now here she sat on a roof with the broodmaster (freshly released from the hospital in new underpants) and his chief fangirl (after having gotten new clothes brought to her by one of the other fangirls, while she'd stayed safe locked up in the girl's toilet).

She'd rather be back in the classroom floating leaves. Ranma'd had a brilliant idea to get the academy teacher to show them some things while they were waiting, and chakra control was dear to the mercenary's heart now that her life could well depend on it.

Of course, the only technique she knew was the basic Clone illusion, and that only because the girl she was replacing almost knew it well enough already, and Nabiki herself had been told what to expect on the test, so had been practicing it exhaustively for a week.

No, she'd much rather be back in that classroom doing reviews on ninja secrets than be up here listening to the pathetic drama of the constipation magnet and the girl who loved him. Even her teacher... sigh. It was so hard to respect a grown man who'd read porn in front of a bunch of pre-teens!

Her slouching instructor didn't even look at them as he said, "Alright, why don't we introduce ourselves: likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams, that sort of thing..."

"Why don't I go first?" Nabiki asked, leaning back in a vaguely hostile posture, her arms crossed and eyes half-lidded, a pose that would've screamed 'danger' to any resident of Nerima.

She pointed at her teacher. "You are Kakashi Hatake, the legendary Copy Cat Kakashi, graduated the academy at age five, promoted to chunin at age six. Currently, jonin, you had a brief stint as an ANBU captain. Most of your fame is because of the Sharingan eye of your teammate Obito, implanted as his last request as he died. With it, you have copied over a thousand techniques."

The guy's disinterested and bored look vanished like a switch got flipped.

Both Nabiki's teammates stopped squabbling and looked intensely interested.

But the Tendo girl scowled as she went on. "You are the son of the legendary White Fang of Konoha, Sakumo Hatake, who was respected on a level with the Sannin. He passed on his famous weapon to you, which you broke rather carelessly, I might add."

Kakashi's one visible eye narrowed toward her dangerously.

Nabiki was unimpressed. "Because your Sharingan is not your own, you often hospitalize yourself with over-usage; which is why you keep it hidden by your headband most of the time, seeing as how you can't turn it off, so it keeps sucking out your chakra. You made jonin at thirteen, signed the dog summoning contract, and were on the team taught by the Fourth Hokage. Despite this, you have never passed a genin team or passed on any of your skills - something that Obito would say made you worse than trash, and your father would have been disappointed in, to say nothing of your betrayal of your teacher's legacy."

Kakashi's pose had gone from aloof and lazy to hostile and stony.

Nabiki's cool exterior passed off this hostility as though it were of no consequence, though inside she was sweating, and her teammates, Sakura and Sasuke, were paralyzed with the emotions rolling off this intense display.

"You are also a broken, washed up, burned out, has-been of a ninja," she declared flatly, meeting his gaze with a level one of her own. "You have no friends, no hobbies, and no interests except for reading porn. Rin would've been ashamed of you. You are never on time, and famous for making up lame excuses - something that you copied from Obito. You spend most of your time staring at the grave marker with Obito's name on it, and have gotten yourself dangerously out of shape not keeping up with your training."

Sasuke and Sakura were now cringing away from the amount of killing intent manifesting.

But Nabiki was an excellent judge of character, and knew she hadn't crossed the line to where he'd attack her just yet, though it was getting close. And, now, of course, to the point of this whole rant, "You disguise your many failures by pretending you are no longer trying, but some of the best ninja of Konoha have had their part in training you, and you betray them all by refusing to pass on those skills to others. And," here she acquired a nasty smirk, "You compound your betrayal by doing something your father, both teammates, and your teacher would ALL have abhorred! As your teacher's last remaining student, his child is your responsibility as surely as if it were your very own, and you have ignored him since birth."

The waves of killing intent cut off in shock.

Nabiki smirked victoriously.

Both Sasuke and Sakura remained paralyzed, staring at the duo in amazement.

The middle Tendo daughter then waved a hand idly at the other two. "Sakura Haruno, a girl who betrayed her best friend, and the one to save her from being a social outcast, in order to become her rival for Sasuke's affections - a boy who has never shown any interest in girls, and seems obsessed with killing his brother, Itachi Uchiha, in spite of the fact that his brother graduated the academy at the age of seven, and was a chunin at ten, so obviously is far more advanced and powerful. Itachi also had competent teachers, while poor Sasuke gets stuck with you - until you fail us all, just like you did everyone else."

The silence stretched until it became almost unbearable.

"Meet me in training ground 7 at 8 AM tomorrow for survival training." Kakashi spoke in cold, flat tones. "Don't eat breakfast or you'll throw up."

With that, the jonin vanished in a swish of leaves, taking the killing intent with him.

Nabiki resisted rolling her eyes, quietly thinking the jonin could well be spying on them out of concealment somewhere.

She hoped Ranma appreciated this. Pricking that guy's conscience using data from her own briefing, and what she'd been able to turn up since, had been acutely dangerous for a know-nothing genin like her. Out of shape or not, that jonin could've beaten her like a rag doll.

But she'd had to do it, for two reasons: one, it was the only chance to get the guy to do any actual teaching. And she was on his team now, so her survival depended in large part on him for that. So she couldn't let him slack off and had to at least TRY to goad him into doing some actual instructing. For the other...

Well, Ranma ought to owe her a big one if what she'd said got the guy to go seek out the pigtailed boy and offer restitution for his previous neglect.

Of course, having offended the guy so deeply she could count on whatever his test was being worse, and she'd had no guarantees of passing anyway. Although... this had been a calculated gamble. By calling his worth as a teacher into question, as well as his duty to his own teachers to pass on the skills they'd given him... well, it stood a chance to give them all an opportunity to pass, because of his guilty conscience.

By challenging him on the teaching front, he might actually step up and teach. Of course, he was going to make them suffer for his humiliation. If they did pass, by some miracle or guilt of the guy's conscience, he'd make it worse than boot camp for them.

But that was better than having her heart stop.

-oOoOo-

Tertius had been reformed and was being employed by Ranma during the otherwise dead time of waiting for the Hokage's meeting to be over so they could get team assignments, scavenging discarded ninja tools from the various training grounds.

People left an appalling amount of equipment out just lying around. It would be a waste not to gather it, especially since he needed new gear anyway, and some of this was top of the line stuff, just left laying there after people finished practicing.

Some people just had no sense of the value of a good tool.

Of course, Tertius was a girl at the moment, after having gone swimming in a few ponds in order to retrieve the equipment on the bottom, but that was nothing a quick shower wouldn't fix. And the cheapest ninja tool she'd recovered was worth more than that!

There was also that lovely data downloaded from Secundus to consider. It was amazing how, with the same skills, just decent eyesight, Mousse was a much more credible threat. Even the faster rewind was, Tertius guessed, because the duck-boy no longer had to worry as much about his chains catching on something without his knowing as he was reeling them back in, and pulling him off of his feet.

It was delicious to consider stuff like that. It was most of what Ranma lived for.

Heading back to the academy so she could reequip the original with gear she'd successfully scavenged, the redhaired and female Tertius caught sight of Hinata falling through the air and reacted without thinking, leaping up to intercept and rescue her.

-oOoOo-

Hinata had been thrown into the air practically from Madara Kuno's (no way no how is da Big Kahuna an Uchiha, so put dat tot outta yo heads raht now!) first blow.

Ranko (Tertius) arrived in time to make an intercept, catching the other girl and landing on the school roof, pivoting as she did so to make an unassisted, one-armed block of four kunai with one of her own, kick high into the chin of the follow-up attacker who'd arrived (with hair clippers) right about as poor Hinata was to have struck ground, and followed that motion through to spin in place, inverting her own body to lay Hinata down gently on the roof, flip completely around and lift the still rising body of Kuno Sr even further into the air with a second kick under his chin while he was still reacting to the impact of the first one.

That double attack was enough to vanquish the water-clone, and that body of Kuno Sr exploded in a shower of droplets like a popped balloon.

The pigtailed girl then leap off the roof to go join Primus in his fight against the original Kuno...

... completely uncaring of the fact that she'd just done these amazing feats of acrobatics and skill not four feet in front of the genin of Kakashi's team.

Sasuke Uchiha rose out of his funk in a startled shock. When Sakura shook him, worried that something had gone wrong with him, the boy rose to his feet to better watch the not-so-distant fight of three genin vs Madara Kuno.

"Sasuke! What is it!!" The concerned pink hair girl shook her crush.

He shook his head, focused on observing the fight.

"SASUKE!!" Sakura cried out in real concern.

The boy met her eyes for one long, emotional moment. It caught her off-guard, and she was sure the moment had arrived at last. She'd never seen him look that way before. He held his emotions so close normally, but this time...

"Sakura, according to the medics I cannot delay any longer if I am to restore my clan. And I am... under orders to do so as soon as possible." Mostly so the medics could ascertain if that was still possible. They were unsure given the extent of the damage.

"HOTCHA!! One Haruno girl is going to get lucky tonight!!" the girl's inner voice crowed.

For the first time she could ever remember Sasuke-kun's face was raw with emotion, full of passion... and, for the first time ever, ROMANCE!!

The boy licked his lips.

Sakura prepared herself to receive a kiss.

The Uchiha swiped her hands away before forming a fist and waxing in poetic in rhapsody, turning back to gaze on the leaping motions of the trio of genin involved in the Kuno fight, "At Last! I have Found her! Look at how the beauteous pigtailed girl fights that jonin! It is as if they are on equal terms! I do not know her, so she must be new. To be a new genin yet fight like a jonin... Obviously she is the strongest girl in Konoha!"

A wave crested against the back of the school building and crashed, highlighting Sasuke in a moment of triumphal glory, as he stood, outlined by a sunset occurring during mid-day, fist clenched in testament to his holy cause.

The light of obsession appeared in his eyes as Sasuke watched Ranma's female clone do battle. "That makes her the best. And don't I deserve the best? She is the only girl in the village strong enough for me to consider using to revive my clan!"

Sakura broke down in tears.

Nabiki had to bite her lip and hold her gut to avoid exploding in laughter.

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

Forgive me, but one of the things that annoys me most about Naruto fiction in general is where they take the trouble to list out team assignments by rote, but somehow manage to skip all the ones not listed in the source material.

That just strikes me as A) Lazy, and B) sticking WAAAY too close to canon! It's like Harry Potter stories where they quote the original Sorting Hat song word by word. Pointless and ultimately frustrating as well.

So, by way of tribute to some of the last great authors of Ranma fanfiction from a previous era (some of whom are, luckily, still with us in one capacity or another), I gave them a brief cameo; like the great filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock always showed up in his own films in a brief, inconsequential background role - but he was always there!

No place in the plot, just a tribute to greatness.


	5. Chapter 5

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Five

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

As the fight moved away from her, and Sasuke followed to keep a good vantage to view it, Nabiki wiped a tear of laughter out of her eyes. "Poor Ranma. That means he got to keep his dangerous ability to attract suitors. Or is that his ability to attract dangerous suitors?"

"Ah, well," she moved off, chuckling, to go see Iruka about borrowing some scrolls to train from. "I guess that could be considered essential to his character."

-oOoOo-

"See anything yet?"

Hinata frowned.

The newly reformed Secundus swallowed, forming a sickly smile, "Hinata-chan?"

The girl beamed gloriously.

The pair were bounding over the rooftops, her bloodline activated. After all, Principal Kuno hadn't said they'd had to beat him in a fight, only find a coconut with a note in it to pass this stupid test. And who better to find things than a girl with three hundred and sixty degree x-ray vision?

Secundus had been reformed to keep her safe, escorting her as they ran around town together, while Primus and Secundus kept their jonin occupied. Things would be working great if the Hyuga heiress wasn't so flustered. She kept pausing and wasting time!

Ino was pretty much a lost cause, not good enough to participate in the fight and no use on the search either. But Ranma wasn't going to stress about it.

No, he was too busy stressing about his and Hinata's relationship. The girl had explained quite sternly that she didn't feel it was appropriate NOT to use terms of affection for each other. But then it'd been like she'd run out of juice, and all the sternness ran out of her...

... right when they could have used a dedicated drive to go find that coconut then girl went all limp with nerves and wouldn't concentrate!

Ranma knew Principal Kuno. If they didn't hurry with this test then he was going to throw all sorts of complications onto an already tough assignment. Tactical mind activated, he could tell that if Hinata didn't get it into gear soon they were going to have much more massive obstacles thrown in their path. So, for their victory and success as a genin team (which was itself a goal on his way to Hokage), whatever was troubling the girl had to be fixed, and fast!

Along with that brilliant tactical mind of his he'd developed a downright uncanny insight into what motivated those around him, when he chose to use it. It was vital for gaining insights into the weakness of his enemies, which was mostly what he'd used it for, and so primarily this was one of those tools he pulled out only during fights.

Luckily, this qualified.

In moments he knew of a solution to the problem. But he didn't like it. Of course, not liking something that he needed to do to win a fight or beat a challenge had never stopped him before. He'd faced cats, gone girly, worn lingerie, or done just about anything else he'd detested in order to triumph or accomplish a challenge set before him.

And it wasn't like he disliked this. In fact, he liked it very, very much. It was just... scary.

But fear had never stopped Ranma Saotome!

"Hey, Hinata-chan?" Secundus probed as they came to a rest atop a building. She turned to him in an instant, blushing and nervous, and he did his best to project confidence and keep his own nervousness out of his voice, shooting her a cocky grin. "You know what? If we can get this done early, I can take ya back ta that hotel. And we can..."

He trailed off suggestively and adopted just the right grin (copied from Mikado).

Hinata blushed cherry red for a moment, smiled maniacally, straightened up showing much more confidence than before and took off like a shot, quartering Konoha as they leapt in unison together so she could search the entire village for that coconut with a coupon inside.

The girl's sudden drive was almost as amazing as her nearly disguised leer.

-oOoOo-

Kakashi was upset. That was obvious.

What was not was that he was puzzled. Truly, he'd cared little for whatever team they tried to foist off on his this time... until it was announced the Uchiha was going to be on it. That had perked his interest, as this could be his last chance to make amends to Obito by helping his last loyal clan member achieve greatness.

He'd actually been toying with the idea of letting the team pass this year.

Then that girl had come along.

Kakashi honestly didn't know what to think of her. She was not that impressive, among the lowest grades of the class, nothing exceptional anywhere, just barely passed... which either meant the academy teachers knew nothing about their students or she'd been concealing her abilities deliberately.

Kakashi frankly hadn't cared about the composition of any teams the academy gave him. In the first place, he'd never intended to pass one, and in the second, he'd trusted them to be professionals about their jobs and hand out well balanced teams. It'd never even crossed his mind what to do with a team once he'd gotten one, so he'd never actually cared.

Until that Nabiki Tendo girl had started spouting off all that knowledge about him.

There were maybe four people in Konoha who knew him so well, and none outside it. That had been the case this morning. Now there were five. He could discount the other two genin as doubtless they'd forget half of what they'd heard.

Still, that girl, barely adequate as an academy student, had casually told him two A-rank and one S-rank secret. She'd also told him things, personal things, that he'd thought no one else should know. While not strictly speaking village secrets, he'd felt they were as well guarded as some S-ranks.

Of course, he'd already known about them, but there was no way SHE should! Then she'd had to compound that by going and telling him evaluations that, while he'd not agreed with them, on examination proved to be true. He'd tested his conditioning, and it was shot. He'd let himself get dangerous out of shape without even admitting that to himself; which brought up with uncomfortable validity her assessment that he was a has-been ninja. Certainly his last great accomplishments were... too far ago to think about, honestly. He'd been coasting on past greatness for a long time.

So where did this genin girl get her information? How do you assess someone better than they knew themselves? Turn up both personal and village secrets like that?

Who did she know?

Had contacts blabbed? Was it a bloodline? Frankly he didn't know anything about her, and considering what she knew about him that gave her an uncomfortable advantage. That was why, for the first time ever, he'd gone quite against his original intentions and plucked the academy files for his students.

In the first place, this Nabiki Tendo showed no abilities, access or anything else that ought to have given her that kind of in-depth knowledge; not even any of the usual sources of leaks. The girl had no clan, so no elder on the council to let slip what he'd overheard. She was not involved in any of the usual businesses that often sprung leaks, drinking establishments or... well, 'undercover' activities. According to her file, she didn't even know anyone who knew anyone who might be around when those who had secrets started dropping their guards.

It was enough to cause him to wonder if this Nabiki Tendo was an enemy infiltrator. But if so, why blow her cover?

The second thing he'd discovered was even more unnerving, and had blown his faith in the professionalism of the academy teachers. Kakashi had never given it much thought, but he'd always somehow assumed that his experience as a genin was normal - exceptional, sure, but he'd still made the assumption that what he'd been through had been some type of template - everyone went through training more or less the same thing as him, right?

Wrong.

He'd never known how wrong he'd been until looking over those records, either.

Kakashi had always been surrounded by powerful ninja. His family, their friends and their children had all been immersed in the shinobi lifestyle to the point where they were like the fish unable to notice the water - they couldn't imagine anything else.

He'd never even considered how you grew a ninja, but that was always the environment he'd imagined.

Instead, like a cold dash of water in his face, he'd discovered that all three of his students lacked that. Nabiki Tendo was a kyubi orphan, but her family had no ninja background even so. Sakura Haruno was a child of civilian parents, the kind that usually washed out of the academy at a young age. And Sasuke, the one he'd pinned so many hopes on, Sasuke had once been in the kind of all-ninja, all the time setup Kakashi'd always assumed was normal for the village nin. But then he'd lost it, and by all reports his training had slowed to a virtual crawl.

Having been passed from one elite teacher to another Kakashi didn't truly have a good sense of what was normal, but this was about as far from his expectations as it was possible to get and still be qualified as ninja. The kind of personal care and one on one attention he'd always assumed you picked up in your clan largely hadn't happened with these kids. From his own background, the ninja school was the place where you outshone your classmates in order to impress instructors and get recommended to a truly awesome teacher. That was its only purpose, to show off.

He'd never even imagined trying to pick up all of your ninja skills there.

Well, that was it. The Legendary Copy Cat dropped the files back onto the desk. Some academy instructor would put them back for him.

No way was he going to pass a team whose skills were as pathetic as this.

Kakashi paused. There was one other matter. Until now, the son of his teacher had been something he'd been successfully ignoring. Back in the deep, dark recesses of his soul he knew about his responsibility. Seeing as the boy had nobody else, as the Fourth Hokage's last remaining student, the duty of caring for the child fell squarely on his shoulders.

But he didn't want to.

And as quickly as that, he'd thought up a justification. So now, the jonin reasoned to himself, he couldn't. Ranma's identity as the Fourth's son was an S-rank secret. Anyone could have been listening to that genin girl as she gave him a dressing down. He hadn't anticipated it, so held that 'meet and greet' in a very public location. So anyone could have overheard her reveal it. Granted, he probably would've sensed them, but...

But [blank] it! He didn't WANT to care for the lad!

Kakashi had been making up lame excuses for so long he didn't even notice as he did it to himself. He couldn't care for the boy. Anyone who might've overheard that little secret fest would now be watching him to see if his behavior changed toward anyone. He couldn't go do anything for Ranma now, as that would only serve to pinpoint the boy for enemy agents. It was for his own good. His safety demanded it.

After all, who knew what crazed villains, criminal masterminds, traitorous ninja, infiltration agents, heads of enemy villages, or just plain nutcases would take an interest in the boy if he did?

Not far away, the jonin sensei of Ranma's team suddenly sneezed, then went immediately back to trying to tackle his little genins and shave all of their hair off.

-oOoOo-

Ranma Primus smirked as Quatrus formed.

That gave him three clones and four Ranmas total.

That entity guy had made a Big mistake when he told Ranma chakra was made up of bits, because ONE of those bits was something he already understood full well. He was already a chi expert, one of the best on his world, and there wasn't anything that was going to be able to keep him from being just as good at those other bits!

It wasn't too hard to adapt much of what he'd already known about chi manipulation to this mana stuff. But without that extra anti-Sharingan training, he'd have been stuck with no clue how to manipulate the portions of it for better control of the whole. He'd have been stuck with that Naruto guy's chakra control, which stank!

Big time.

Now he knew how to manipulate chakra by understanding the components and how they mixed, he could also analyze how they worked in that mixture, and from that he'd be able to reverse engineer a few spells... hopefully.

He really wasn't sure. But he'd done similar stunts with fighting feats before now, and this was pretty similar. Just understand the energy flow and what it did, then apply that know-how to change a bit of how it flowed to get it to do what you wanted out of it.

Of course, analyzing it was the big stresser, as Ranma didn't have a whole lot of magic to study. It was one thing to analyze the fuel mixture (chakra) when he could take out a known component and then study the rest. That wasn't a problem.

However, now he had to build an entirely new engine.

Sure, he could take bits out his chakra techniques, but he only knew a couple of them, and anywhere those were a whole nuther level of complexity. Because with chakra it wasn't just chi and mana, it was how the interaction with each changed the other.

He could tell that one was going to be a complex issue just because, well, he'd already known the Body Switch technique before he'd come here. So he knew the chi-only version of his own past, PLUS the chakra-powered one of this world. And the differences in chi flows between the chi-only one and the chakra powered one were very, very strange.

So it would be an advantage to work on something wholly magical for a while. And, well, he HAD one of those. But...

The boy sighed and looked down at the gems in his palm.

No longer glowing, they were the 'this will teach you this skill, that one will teach you that' jewels that entity guy had left embedded in that pillar. Before he'd left, Ranma had already tried touching them a second time. But they stopped that whole 'knowledge implant' thingy once they'd stopped glowing. So, as near as he could tell, they were strictly one-use items.

That hadn't stopped them from being valuable gems, though. Fifty carats each, at a guess.

Ranma had pried up no-longer glowing training jewels after having used them. He'd have brought the pillar, too, but couldn't lift it off from where it was attached to that seamless floor - otherwise he could've sold it as an ornamental garden piece, or something.

Genma Saotome was big on making the most out of scrounging, and made for a great teacher, if you were into that sort of thing. Which, as itinerant martial artists, it was hard not to be, as the alternative was stealing (at which Ranma was also unfortunately very good).

But, no, the entity guy had given him gems, so Ranma had taken those gems, even if that may not have been that guy's original intention.

The only one he hadn't managed to scavenge was the last one, the general background information one, and he'd chosen that one as last because, deep in his heart of hearts, he'd been hoping to run into someone like Cologne on this side who'd be able to make them work again - and he figured anyone else those entities moved, they'd get their own set of background lore when they got dropped here. So that was the most extendible.

The boy sighed, sliding the jewels back into weapon space. What it came down to was that none of these were terribly extendible, and he knew that he could easily break one, or all of them, if he tried recharging them blindly. And until they were recharged he couldn't see them in use with his new magic senses, so couldn't easily learn to duplicate them. Or even make his own spells by watching the one teaching spell encoded in them do their thing.

That left him with only one real option.

Quatrus nodded, needing no explanation, and ran off toward this Naruto guy's apartment... that was now the dump that Ranma was supposed to stay at. The hot water didn't work there, but either way, they had a water heater in the basement. Between that and a garden hose, and Quatrus would be able to trigger the curse on and off as often as he liked.

That was the one truly magical thing Ranma had that he could trigger as often as he wanted. The distinctive tingling of his body switching to female and back again had been one thing back BEFORE he could sense the flow of mana. Now...

Well, maybe it could teach him how a transformative spell worked.

Sure, that wouldn't add anything unique to his arsenal. That entity guy had already passed on this Naruto fellow's ability to shapeshift. But that was another chakra technique. However, between the Body Switch technique, which Ranma could do using either chi or chakra, and this Shapeshift, which he could do with chakra and hoped to be able to learn just using mana ... well, that'd give him the ability to explore how these energies worked from both ends.

Comparing a chi vs chakra technique and a mana vs chakra one could well lead to him getting a much better understanding of all of the energies involved.

Ranma really didn't know what he'd discover doing this. But magic had been a major stress factor throughout his recent life, and that entity guy had hinted there were possibilities to be explored there, and the martial artist already had PLENTY of experience to show magic offered a wide range of possibilities. He didn't know if he'd reach them, but it would put him in a better position to analyze whatever magic he ran into in the future.

Besides, if nothing else, it was something to keep a clone busy on.

Of course, there were other benefits to the anti-Sharingan thing, Primus reflected as he stood on the head of a beaten-to-a-pulp jonin instructor. A glancing hit had destroyed the jonin's sunglasses and revealed red swirly eyes below.

After that, it had been a simple matter for Ranma to switch his anti-Sharingan measures from 'look like a normal person' to 'hide everything' mode. He'd set the 'normal person as his default just in case there were more of these freaky chakra-viewing people about, and he didn't want to look weird.

Which, he reflected, looking back on the fight (and giving the Kuno under his foot a sharp kick in the head as he'd started to recover) had even taught him something valuable.

Looking back in review over the pineapple freak's actions, it was obvious to Ranma that at 'normal human' settings, he left enough chakra visible for this guy to have at least a partial ability to predict his actions - but not to copy them.

Useful information.

Once under 'hide everything mode, however, everything changed. Not only could his sensei no longer even partially predict his attacks, but it was obvious he couldn't even SEE him! Apparently the chakra-sight or whatever of the eye super eye thingy overrode the user's normal vision.

And without the ability to predict him the fight had been over pretty quick.

Ranma smirked. Yeah. That had some interesting possibilities.

Madara twitched, and Ranma kicked him in the head again.

-oOoOo-

"Let's all introduce ourselves," Kurenai told her group, after having gotten them to a training ground and tested their physical conditioning with a run.

"I'm Kiba!" the furry jacketed boy shot up a hand, "and this is Akamaru." There came an affirmative bark. "Together we are Dog Chow Rangers!!"

The boy stood and posed with a wave and sunrise coming up the academy roof to crash dramatically behind him.

Kurenai was holding her head in her hand. "Did Gai serve as one of your teachers?"

"Nah! He just substituted when a teacher got sick," Kiba scoffed, then admitted, "Of course that Hayate guy was sick most of the time..."

"Next," the female jonin looked to the bug user, half expecting him to tear off that long coat in a dramatic gesture to reveal that he was wearing tights.

"Shino Aburame," the serious genin told her in flat, unemotional tones.

After a moment Kurenai began to think that was all he was going to say.

"And I am wearing tights."

The woman flopped face first on the ground.

"They make me feel... sexy," the boy finished in an utter deadpan.

Kurenai practically fell off the roof of the academy building in her shock.

"Now you," she told the girl, pointing quickly to avoid any more of that conversation.

The girl instead leaned forward, invading the jonin's personal space rather abruptly, and with big, shining eyes declared, "Wow! Those thigh bindings are SOOO cute!!!!"

Moments later Kurenai's desperately tugged her shirt down to cover her panties as the girl in an expensive skating costume with her long hair done up in costly ringlets for an over-the-top elaborate hairstyle was skating away merrily with the jonin's thigh wrappings trailing along through the air behind her.

And, apparently, Kurenai's wrappings were now named "Marie-Curette."

"Azusa Shiratori," Kiba provided a name for the little klepto to their shared teacher.

"And I love what she's done with her hair," Shino continued in an utter deadpan.

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

Welcome to my insanity. I hope you like it here.


	6. Chapter 6

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Six

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

During the night, a mob burned down Ranma's apartment building.

It was expected, really.

For one, he'd outdone the villager's precious Uchiha, displacing him as the top of their class (which thing the villagers couldn't stand for two reasons. For one they positively despised the thought of the hated demon container getting more powerful, but also they felt affection unspeakable for the Sharingan heir, and outperforming him, or especially stripping away any of his rightfully deserved honors, was strictly forbidden for ANYONE), but also there was that scroll thing.

Ranma's first day in this world had been so busy he couldn't have both done what he'd done AND studied those anti-Sharingan scrolls. So he'd not even have read the precious techniques if he'd gone by the expected schedule and just jumped straight into this world.

So his assumption that something or other would conspire to attempt to deprive him of those scrolls before he could've read them was spot on.

Of course, being forewarned by previous experience, Ranma hadn't been anywhere near his apartment building at the time that it burned. And he considered the burned out cinder of a building (when he saw it in the morning) proof of that entity guy's treachery.

This game was rigged against him.

Of course, being a ninja village Ranma couldn't just take his standard fallback measure of setting up a tent and camping out in a park. Some of those ninja Didn't Like Him! In fact the clone he'd left behind had reported the Uchiha Defense Mob had been led in the front by some guys who'd worn headbands with the symbol for Leaf.

Actually, he'd left two clones on watch, one in the apartment reading that book he'd stolen, err, borrowed, from the Hokage, and the other pacing the grounds, expecting an attack. That attack had come, but seeing as how the front ranks of the crowd contained some senior ninja who'd set the abandoned-other-than-by-Ranma building ablaze with jutsu, and Ranma felt no particular attachment to the building, he'd felt it easier to grab his book and relocate.

Everything else of value had been moved earlier that day.

Growing up Genma's son unfortunately teaches you an amazing amount about how to run from mobs. But had he not been aware and expecting it, if he'd gone and stashed those scrolls under a floorboard, for example, they would surely have been destroyed.

Still, the Uchiha Defense Mob, after revenge for having displaced their prodigy, ran out of steam once they'd done what they'd come to do.

Tertius and Quatrus, hiding nearby and using Chi Invisibility at need to escape the notice of the ninja who'd accompanied this mob (the mob itself was far too many people to hide from using that technique - the guy who'd told him of it was right, the costs grew larger the more people you tried to hide from using it, and a mob was prohibitively expensive), saw and witnessed this before falling back to the original's position.

After all, who'd look for a cave bored up the nose of the First Hokage? A few Breaking Point techniques made for really fast tunneling, and he'd gathered up all of the rubble to conceal in another part of town.

That lady didn't even know where her new garden wall had come from.

-oOoOo-

Nabiki, having had a hearty breakfast and spent the intervening hours studying a scroll on the Body Switch technique that she'd borrowed from Iruka's classroom after assignments the other day, stared at her teacher as he declared the terms of his test.

"So, all we've got to do is get a bell before noon?" she asked him.

"Yes," Kakashi answered. "But don't think it will be easy."

Easy! [Blank]! As a jonin, he outclassed them so far it was basically entirely up to him if he even let them SEE a bell after the test started. And he wasn't inclined toward being generous.

No, he'd be failing another genin team today.

"Does it matter which bell?" Nabiki asked, pointing to the two on his belt.

Kakashi smiled behind his mask. "No. Get any bell, you'll pass."

Nabiki folded her arms under her nearly nonexistent breasts (curse being twelve all over again) and lofted an eyebrow at him. "Does it matter HOW we get our bell?"

The jonin shook his head. "No, any techniques or tactics are acceptable."

"Right." Nabiki nodded decisively, then whipped out a pad of paper from the school bag she'd carried to the test with her and, using a notebook as a clipboard, wrote out a summary of what he'd just said. "So, is this accurate?" she asked, handing the piece of paper to him.

The jonin looked it over, his one eye scanning the fairly brief text. "It is."

"Would you mind signing it, with a statement to that effect?" Nabiki offered the man a pen.

Making a note to see her particularly humiliated in the battle to come, Kakashi did so.

Taking her contract describing the details under which she'd graduate back, Nabiki carefully slid it into her bookbag (she'd been tempted to put it inside her bra, but no need to draw his attention to how important this was to her), and nodded to her sensei.

"Begin!" Kakashi called.

Sasuke and Sakura (the latter with bags under her eyes from weeping) both vanished.

Nabiki just casually checked her watch. "Well," she proclaimed. "Despite you wasting three of them, I see we still have an hour before noon. See you guys in forty minutes. Chow!"

She departed the training ground with a jaunty wave.

Seeing shuriken coming at him from out of the corner of his eye as Sasuke made his assault, Kakashi made a note to beat Nabiki in some particularly foul way when she came back for the insult of pretending that she'd only need twenty minutes to defeat him. He wasn't used to being treated so dismissively, and particularly not by a genin doing it so callously.

No, he was going to hurt her in some big way when she got back.

But for right now, he had two other genin to hunt. He'd take care of them so completely that he could devote the whole twenty minutes after her return to soundly scarring Nabiki's mind.

-oOoOo-

Azusa Shiratori was blindingly cute, talented, and also an insane kleptomaniac who's attacks were almost impossible to resist.

It wasn't just that they were blindingly fast, although they most definitely were, but that they came so unexpectedly. In the first place, Azusa had a positive gift for choosing that one, unguarded moment to make her strike in, but also...

Azusa's attacks came completely without Killer Intent. Heck, they came without HURTFUL intent! She wasn't concerned with the people she was attacking at all. They never entered her sweet little mind.

She was after their stuff.

She would find something and randomly decide it was cute, then fixate on it and steal it. And, if that required her to bonk the victim on the cranium with something like a dreadfully cute little pink mallet with a ribbon tied around it, then so be it.

Little Azusa made a routine habit out of surprising people who had finely honed danger senses. Partially because her distracted style of combat left those people bereft of the usual notice they expected to receive, as she never came across as any kind of threat, even when she was attacking - so it required an unusual focus to counter her in combat.

Sasuke, buried up to his neck in the soil of the training ground, listening to the distant shrieks of Sakura getting put under a Hell-Viewing Illusion, watched as his jonin walked casually into a distant thicket, to be followed by zipping, then slurping, sounds.

Just as the helpless boy judged his teacher to be at his most distracted, a girl who was wearing an expensive skating costume raced past where the Uchiha was buried in the dirt, then came skating back to pause before him and bend down over his present position.

"OOOH! Those eyes are SOOO cute!!" Azusa glittered.

YOINK!!

Sasuke screamed over his suddenly empty sockets while Azusa laughed gaily as she skated sharply away to have them made into a pair of earrings. Kakashi, bent double slurping on himself in a bush, felt no killer intent and merely assumed the boy's pained yells to be over his frustration over his inability to get out of the ground that held him trapped was finally cresting his stoic facade.

So the jonin went on slurping, turning pages on his porn.

-oOoOo-

Hinata Hyuga bounced past, smiling and with all of the confidence in the world.

On a grassy hill overlooking a portion of the happy girl's path, Shikamaru stopped his cloud watching momentarily and adjusted the straw stuck in between his teeth before Choji spoke around a mouthful of chips, interrupting his thoughts.

"Hm, I wonder how Hinata will act now. I mean, she just accomplished her life's goal and I'm pretty sure her stuttering and lack of confidence are a thing of the past. The main barrier to her skills has always been lack of confidence."

Shikamaru gave off a lazy snort, reclining to look once more back up at the clouds. "So troublesome. We don't know that they did anything. It's only common gossip."

Nabiki materialized by their sides, having been out on errands but drawn by the smell of action. "Oh? You know, I'd be willing to lay you odds on that, if you'd care to make a small wager."

Both male ninja regarded the suddenly appearing kunoichi with some amount of shock. "Do you think you could prove it?"

The Tendo girl played innocent. "I think I could maybe provide some pictures... IF they did anything, that is."

"I'll wager a ryo they didn't." Shikamaru produced the bill, waving it once before it was eagerly snatched up by the mercenary girl.

"Small change, but I'll still take it. Here you go. That proof enough?"

The two boy's eyes widened alarmingly at the photo. Choji's chip bag fell out of nerveless fingers and he reached for the picture, but she'd snatched it back in half a second.

Nabiki laughed. "No hard feelings, I hope? A girl's gotta earn a living somehow."

Shikamaru just lay back casually. "Feh. It was more troublesome to guess than to know."

Nabiki's eyes narrowed, sizing the boy up while his companion reclaimed his chip bag. 'He knew all along I could provide proof. He just felt it was worth a ryo to see it.' She adopted a much more casual pose, speaking casually as she put the bill away in her purse, "Of course if it gets out that sleeping with Ranma caused her sudden jump in skills she may find a lot of people trying to horn in on her action."

"That'd never happen," Shikamaru snorted.

Nabiki's eyes positively glittered with greed. "Care to put money on that?"

-oOoOo-

Ino had always been an assertive, popular girl, confident of her ninja abilities. She was not prepared to have been totally useless in that fight where her team graduated as genin.

This was to have been her defining moment, the place and period where she proved to everyone what she'd learned and how effective she could be.

Instead she'd been a bystander.

She could have been a carving on a monument for all the good she did her team on that test. She'd never meant to be useless, but the principal members of that fight (Madara Kuno and Ranma) were both moving so fast that she couldn't even get a hint of a good opportunity to use her family jutsu. And, without the Mind Body Switch technique, she had nothing other than her basic three academy jutsu.

It was, needless to say, a very humbling experience. Not only had her teammates ignored her completely, as having nothing useful to contribute, so had her teacher. He hadn't even thrown a courtesy blow her way so she could pretend she'd meant something to that fight. If he'd gone and knocked her out she could've told herself that being out of it had been her excuse, then gone on with her life and been grateful to her teammates for carrying on.

Instead she'd felt useless, and too ashamed to feel properly grateful to anyone. Even a total stranger had jumped in and contributed against their jonin!

And Ino didn't know where the pigtailed redhead had gone, or she would've thanked her.

Missing out on one fight wasn't enough to shatter her confidence as a kunoichi. After all, Ino was a tough, intelligent and independently minded girl (who could also be described as bitchy and borderline arrogant), but last night Sakura had come to her house, a sobbing wreck, to declare their rivalry was over - and neither of them had won.

Ino was not exactly inclined to believe her, after all the pair of girls had been at odds ever since Sakura got her sights on the popular Uchiha. But this morning she'd run into Sasuke who'd it confirmed in the bluntest, most arrogant, direct and unfeeling way possible. Sasuke himself had told Ino to her face that he wasn't interested in anyone but the pigtailed girl who'd materialized to help her team in their fight - that if he was going to revive his clan at all (which he intended to do post haste) it would be with the pigtailed girl, or no one at all.

That had been worth a morning of tears, in the blonde's opinion.

Then she saw Hinata bouncing happily along the road, and suddenly she had to know. That girl had been a wallflower two days ago, shy and retiring to the point where she was for all practical purposes invisible in their classroom. Then suddenly she was attacking jonin in close combat and trading blows, even if she wasn't nearly on a level with either her ally or her opponent. She'd still gotten close and mixed it up on the HOPE of contributing.

How had she done it?

Where did she get her confidence from?

Ino had to KNOW!

Because whatever it was, Ino was going to get some of that for herself, then work on her basic ninja skills. Because, good as she'd thought she was, she obviously needed to be better.

And her sagging confidence could sure use a boost, too.

It wouldn't hurt if she could find some way to feel attractive again, either. Sasuke's rejection had been harsh, and it hurt her feminine pride just when she'd failed as a ninja. And she needed to be successful somewhere in her life, darn it!

-oOoOo-

Sakura had been top of the grade curve on the written portion, bottom of it on physical skills, and middle of the road on ninja techniques.

She had not expected to find herself tied to a log.

Kakashi was completely unsympathetic. He had gone easy on her, hitting her with an illusion, as that was one of those attacks most easily resisted by those with book-smarts and class learning.

Pathetic, really, that she had so little ability to apply that learning in the field.

The jonin was much more concerned over what he was supposed to do about the Uchiha. However he wanted to spin it, while they were taking his test they were on his watch - for these few hours he'd been their jonin instructor, and thus he had responsibility. He HATED responsibility, but...

How was he going to explain some girl (obviously a foreign ninja) had not only penetrated Konoha's defenses, but come upon his genin team and stolen Sasuke's inactive Sharingan eyes while Kakashi was supposedly there, on site, protecting them?

Dang. This was going to cause paperwork.

it was in this haze of conflicting opinion that his third genin rejoined them. Nabiki strode quite casually and confidently back onto the training field where they'd been having their test, and the girl was unconcernedly slurping on a soda as she did so.

"Before you ask. You failed."

Nabiki smirked at the jonin's rebuke, casually checking her watch. "Oh? According to this, I still have fifteen minutes."

"All three of you still failed."

Sakura, where she was tied to the post, sobbed over the reminder.

Nabiki confidently waved the girl's concerns away. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about it. Failing his test is no shame. He fails everybody. So even if we did flunk his test, just chalk up three more marks to his being a complete failure as a teacher."

Sasuke sobbed through the bandages over his currently empty eye sockets. Kakashi would have taken him immediately to the hospital, but that would mean admitting that he'd been sucking on his own testicles while those precious eyes were being stolen. He had to come up with a better excuse. But after over a decade of coming up with lame ones, the jonin was having trouble penetrating his built up art of unbelievable and ridiculous excuse making to come up with a halfway plausible one that didn't shower him with all the blame.

Nabiki crossed her arms and, ignoring what she ignorantly presumed were the minor injuries of the Uchiha, glared at their teacher, then offering the suggestion, "You know, I know you've never taught anyone anything in your life. So this is all new to you. To make it easier, why don't you repeat one of the lessons your teachers gave to you?"

Kakashi glared at her, uncomfortably aware of that failure, and only too willing to accept an opportunity to forget about for a moment, punishing a distraction. "I am not your teacher."

"Oh, yes you are." Nabiki proudly produced the paperwork, smirking, "After a rushed but very satisfying lunch I dropped by the Hokage's office to register our victory."

Kakashi glared at her, and Sakura stopped crying in amazement.

The jonin snorted. "And people say I make up lame excuses."

And he did.

Here Nabiki had to chortle. "Not at all, sensei. Nothing lame about it, and it's not an excuse. I gave that little slip of paper you signed earlier to the clerk, and showed off this bell."

She held up a little, tinkling ornament.

Kakashi's visible eye widened.

Sakura's jaw dropped open in shock.

Sasuke drooled, lost in his own pain.

The jonin's hand snapped to his belt, where still hung two bells.

But Nabiki still spun her little ornament casually around her finger. "It wasn't too hard," she gloated. "All I had to do was find the shop where YOU buy them. Any bell at all was good enough to get me to pass, and it didn't matter what strategy I used to obtain them. Nothing was ever said about getting one of yours - you signed that little sheet of paper yourself."

Kakashi's jaw dropped.

Sakura cursed herself for not taking that path herself. It was so OBVIOUS! (Once someone else had thought of it, naturally.)

Sasuke moaned in pain.

Nabiki laughed, covering her mouth with the back of one hand while still twirling the little bell around the other. "And, since the clerk could obviously see that I was there with a bell and it was not yet noon, he simply read the report and registered my success. Which reminds me," the girl looked at her watch once again, then up to Sakura. "We still have eleven minutes left. Want a bell? I bought spares."

"YES!!" the pink haired girl cried out eagerly.

"Fifty ryo," Nabiki held out a bell to the girl, her other palm open to receive cash.

-oOoOo-

"Alright, my little keikei's," Madara Kuno boomed out in his too-loud, too-deep voice that was backed by a too-wide smile that took far too much delight in causing mayhem for the children under his control. "We make a goood teem, yes I tink so! To let you prove it to da Hokage, I got you an A-class mission, yah!"

The jonin dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt (and who'd somehow replaced his broken sunglasses) unrolled a lifesize poster. He pointed to the person it displayed. "Dis here bein Anko Mitarashi. An she habbin WAAAY too much underwear, me tinkin. So I hired you all out on a mission to go stealin all o her panties, yah! If any o you live tru dis assignment, we be gettin together later."

The jonin and his poster vanished in a puff of mist.

Ino turned to whisper fiercely in Hinata's ear, "Does that woman even WEAR panties?"

Hinata nodded, then whispered back, "Yes, but only for that time of the month."

Ino paused, then blushed fiercely, whispering back, "Have you even HAD those yet?"

Hinata nodded once shyly.

Ino sighed, then rolled her eyes. Looking around to her other teammate, wondering why he'd been silent this whole time, she found him asleep. Nudging him awake with her foot, she told him, "Wake up Ranma! We've got a mission!"

"Huh? What?" the boy bounced to his feet alertly, then began rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment. He'd fallen asleep in the minute or two it had taken their teacher to show up for their meeting. "What did I miss?"

"We've got to fight a jonin," Ino told him tersely, trying hard to conceal what she was thinking about what Hinata told her about where her newfound confidence had come from. He was nice. And those muscles!

"Why?" the boy blinked rather stupidly.

Ino suddenly blushed, turning away feigning anger, as she hissed to Hinata, "YOU tell him!"

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

I found myself annoyed by those rising to the Uchiha's defense. So I thought I'd annoy them back.

I'm better at it than they are.

Of course, I still think I had more fun with Nabiki sidestepping Kakashi's bell test, because by the rules as he gave them, even in the original series, what she did was perfectly legal.

Talk about Seeing Underneath the Underneath!

I'd say (correctly) it was a totally original ending to the bell test (until a dozen people copy it from me), except my detractors would then go and break their backs trying to pretend that it wasn't. Of course, if I said you need air to breathe they'd strangle themselves trying to prove me mistaken.

But, this at least I will give myself - that it is a perfect end for an information ninja like Nabiki.


	7. Chapter 7

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Seven

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

No, I must reassert, the "Pay no attention to Kakashi's bells, go buy your own" strategy was a completely original way to pass the test. Stealing them from him early is still stealing them from him.

-oOoOo-

Sarutobi waited patiently for his jonin instructors to report as to their teams.

The jonin Gainax stepped up, shoulders back, her boobs jiggling, unrestrained as always, "Team One Failed!"

"Oh?" The Hokage raised his eyebrows, speaking beside his smoldering pipe. "Would you care to go into more detail? It's rare that so many genin with such personal wealth can't afford the extra training to pass a genin test with ease."

The female jonin nodded sharply, reporting in a businesslike tone of voice, "I gave the standard Water Clone test," she began, and all present nodded. It was a fairly simple and straightforward situation that could actually occur in combat. The jonin separated her students from each other briefly, then made three Water Clones and Transformed them into copies of her team. All then met together, and she gave orders to all to defeat the impostors.

The answer to this test was fairly simple and straightforward as well. Even on a brand new team that didn't know each other well enough to pick out the copies by fighting style and quirks (something that, having spent years in class together, even newly minted genin could theoretically do), the simplest answer was often best: pair up with your own double and defeat it. And since it only fought at one tenth of the jonin's power, a good genin could most probably do that just fine.

It was an easy test to pass, even without the special tricks, like canceling the illusions that disguised the clones, that happened from time to time.

"Oh?" The Hokage raised his eyebrows, back to smoking. It was even rarer that a team able to afford extra training could fail such an easy test.

The female jonin nodded grimly, fighting a scowl. "Rumiko Takahashi spent all of her time declaring all men to be perverts and beating on them indiscriminately with a mallet. I don't know if she could tell them apart or not, but my clones would dodge her blows while her teammates could not, so she spent the entire test almost exclusively attacking her own team. Masashi Kishimoto spent the entire time chanting 'If only I had a Sharingan. I could beat them so easy if I had a Sharingan!' and getting beaten by both his girl teammate and the opposing clones. The last is almost understandable given the other two. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto is... not physically well developed."

She paused, and all those in the room nodded, as they'd seen the scrawny little kid.

Gainax inhaled to finish abruptly. "Well, considering his team I could hardly blame him for standing there chanting 'I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away!' over and over. Heck, when he'd gotten beaten up enough he went berserk and defeated the clone attacking him. He tore off its arm, dispersing it, and he might have done more had Rumiko not knocked him out with her mallet immediately afterwards, yelling about perverts."

Several jonin winced, and Gainax stepped backwards into line, her face stiff.

The Hokage sighed. No wonder her report had been so brief. It must have been terrible for the jonin to preside over such a comedy of errors. He made a note to give her several plum assignments to make up for this embarrassment.

"Team Two passed, as I told you, Hokage-sama," Madara Kuno sat back, totally relaxed and strumming a ukelele, grinning wide under his dark sunglasses. "I gave dem a modified version of da resisted Area Search test, an dey both defeated me an foun da prize!"

Sarutobi nodded, and the gathered jonin whispered among themselves, impressed. It was not often a new genin team could defeat their jonin, no matter what advantages they'd been given. The Hokage smiled his approval. "It looks like Team Two may go far. Next?"

All eyes went to the jonin Kosuke Fujishima, who rubbed the back of his head and laughed, embarrassed. "Oh, they passed. But we're going to need to replace Training Ground Thirty Nine. I didn't believe one of my genin when he said most of his jutsu were of the 'level the countryside' variety, and well... my mistake. I should've."

"And their individual performances?" the Hokage asked, eyebrows raised.

The nervous jonin laughed. "Well, that's the thing. I was doing a stress test, see how well they faced an impossible mission, and Thirty Nine seemed to be the way to go..."

The collected jonin nodded in recognition of that indisputable fact. Training Ground Thirty Nine, or the infamous 'Triple Thirteen' was justly respected as a very hard course to pass, even for chunin. It consisted of a trapped mine with countless intersecting shafts and tunnels. it was just as easy to get lost inside as it was to fall prey to the infinite variety of traps.

"And?" the Hokage pressed, curious.

The leader of Team Three laughed nervously once again, still rubbing the back of his head. "Well, that's the thing..." He swallowed, straightening. "Nothing seemed to go right for Gregg. Oh, he tried, and never gave up. Even despairing he was willing to push on to the end, but nothing he did seemed to work out for him. Celeste was tons better, and despite her listening to J-pop the entire mission held up her end well."

The Hokage noted what he was not saying. "And the third genin?"

"Jared?" Kosuke Fujishima laughed, nervousness tripling before he blurted out honestly. "That kid is a walking force of destruction. Nothing stood in his way for long. Not only is he a combat monster, but he's tricky and devious as well, and seems to have an unnatural ability to cause girls to fall in love with him. I had two chunin helping me watch over the exam to make sure nothing bad happened. The guy got caught in an explosion that collapsed the upper three levels. He's in the hospital now. But the girl... I swear she started stalking the boy halfway through the assignment, taking pictures of the redhaired genin defeating things and dramatically rescuing his team from moments of danger."

"Where is this chunin now? I'd like to hear her report, if possible," the Hokage inquired.

The jonin leader of Team Three laughed again. "Well, that's the thing. Last I left her, she was at her apartment setting up a shrine to Jared using all of those pictures she'd taken."

The collected jonin all sweatdropped.

"Team Four?" the Hokage suddenly changed the subject, calling out Kakashi to talk about his genin.

They all looked to where a scarecrow dressed in the Copy Ninja's uniform and mask stood where the jonin was supposed to be.

"Ah, well," the Hokage cleared his throat. "Well, to save you all from waiting four or more hours for this information, I will just summarize the earlier report. The team passed with an effectual use of information gathering. But during the test a team of foreign ninja penetrated our defenses and injured the Uchiha. He is being seen to now."

Most of the gathered jonin tensed. "And his attackers?"

The Hokage was grimly serious, "They are being hunted by ANBU even as we speak. Kakashi reports having chased them beyond the village wall. Our Hunter Nin will pick up the trail from there."

-oOoOo-

It was a dark and creepy basement, filled with lab equipment and bottles of unidentifiable things packed behind notes and the obligatory wires with arcing electrical sparks between them. All of this located, quite incongruously, under a bright and cheery candy shop.

"Earrings!" Azusa declared and she slapped down a pair of eyeballs extracted a mere few minutes ago from a certain Sharingan heir.

The creepy individual behind the counter did not question where she'd learned of him. It was better not to ask. The fact that she was there as a customer wanting him to provide services created a semi-cordial relationship, and he was happy to leave it that way.

"Hmm," the man picked up an eyeball to look at it through a jeweler's loop. "Sharingan eyes - very valuable. But they'd be worth more if the bloodline had activated."

"Hmph!" the figure skating legend crossed her arms and leaned back. "Don't be stupid. The Cheatingan can do anything, even spontaneously activate for no apparent reason!"

The man in a dark cloak startled and nearly dropped the orb when both eyeballs suddenly just switched from black pupils to the distinctive red and black swirl of an active Sharingan.

"I want them mounted as a pair of earrings," Azusa repeated.

The man gingerly set the eye down and got out his tools. There were many roles for missing ninja in this world. Only the stupidest ran around the countryside waiting to get caught. No, the clever ones, especially those who were not combat monkeys, quietly went to ground somewhere and started new, legitimate-seeming lives all over again. Some rare few joined other ninja forces, most actually joined spy rings, wanting to use their skills without any awkward questions. But some, especially seal masters like himself, just went for a quiet life - although seals were so valuable they could serve a few black market jobs on the side.

And seals could do anything, from imprisoning demons to violating space/time to carry extra equipment... or transform a pair of eyes into gemstones.

Again, he didn't ask how she knew about him. It was best to treat this as just another job.

Azusa just stood back and smirked as the man went to work.

Just because she was insane didn't preclude her from being a genius. The two often went hand in hand. In fact, it was Aristotle who said, "No great genius is without an admixture of madness." And Aristotle ought to know, since he'd hit the 'genius' mark so squarely on the head that for thousands of years other geniuses were still studying his work.

And, quite frankly, rising to the top of your field at a very young age, as Azusa had DONE, was not accomplished without great ability. And great ability was often a hallmark of, and another frequent bedfellow of, genius.

So she had mental quirks. So what? Einstein had been so absent minded he'd frequently walked into the wrong house when returning home. It got to the point where his wife painted the door of their house bright red to give him a clue where he lived. That CUT DOWN on the number of instances of him walking absently into the neighbor's houses, thinking they were his own, but did not eliminate them entirely.

Actually, so long as her little mania for grabbing cute stuff was satisfied, Azusa could be downright brilliant. It was a little known fact that the figure skating legend had perfect grades in High School. Funny how people thought she couldn't listen to a briefing. She'd HAD to know the rules of her skating contests to win so frequently! So, despite trying to pull the hair ribbons off of her entity (and she'd gotten them, too), she'd understood her instructions.

The childishness might not have been a mask, but it was not the only thing hidden among those curls. No, the brain lurking under those cute locks was all the more dangerous because people mostly assumed it wasn't there.

She was insane, but she wasn't stupid. You don't become the undefeated champion of ANYTHING if you're unwilling or unable to follow directions. There are times when judges don't look the other way when you're breaking rules. So, on occasion, you've got to follow them, and to follow them you've got to know them. And to know them, you've got to at least be able to listen, even when it LOOKS like you're totally focused on grabbing stuff.

Of course, just because she'd heard something didn't mean she'd assign any importance to it. People said silly stuff all of the time, absurd comments like "Don't grab that," and "Give it back!" And her entity HAD said something about 'splicing her personality with a shinobi's killing disposition' or something like that.

Azusa had been too busy stealing the entity's costume one bit at a time to think too hard about what her double meant by that.

-oOoOo-

The true secret of Anything Goes was adaptability.

But Ranma was starting to think it's true purpose really WAS stealing underwear!! The poor boy certainly found himself in those sorts of awkward situations often enough.

His team were arrayed outside the jonin lady's house, trying to get entry. Hinata had scanned the place and told them where the (admittedly few) pieces of underwear were stored - but also that the house was bristling with traps.

No problem, Ranma bragged, right before sending in Quatrus.

Ranma was skilled. He was blindingly fast, had finely tuned danger senses and had long since learned how to attune his chi to the environment to sense for traps.

His clone lasted all of a second.

Paling, the boy sent in another, then another. Until finally he ran low on chakra and was pushing on anyway, refusing to admit defeat, when he heard a woman descend to the ground behind him. So focused was he on the objective of trying to get a clone in past the first five steps inside the front door that he would've paid it no attention save for the fact that he felt his two teammates simultaneously fall to the ground at the same time.

The boy whipped around, already on guard ready to dodge attacks, when the freaky lady wearing a trenchcoat over a skirt and mesh top suddenly morphed into Akane...

... back in the Tendo house...

... and she was COOKING!!

Ranma fell screaming to the ground, paralyzed and unable to move, as Anko stepped up to him and smirked.

"Heh. Hell-Viewing Illusion. Works every time."

But the boy continued to scream without pause, as if he didn't even have to inhale to go on breathing. The horror on his face was intriguing, and the jonin paused to assess it professionally. "What has this kid been through that he's got such detailed and horrible fears?"

Anko thought about it for a moment, before deciding she had to know. Tying the boy and the two girls with him up quickly and professionally, she took them into her house, resetting those traps he'd triggered and quieting the silent intruder alarm as she did so.

Also, she was curious. What were these kids doing trying to raid her house? Usually when Jiraiya offered money for her panties they sent jonin, so that couldn't be it.

-oOoOo-

"So, the village hospital has a secret sub-basement? I'd say that I approve, but it all looks rather... creepy," Nabiki finished in disapproving tones, having followed Kakashi down into the basement. The jonin was carrying Sasuke over his shoulder, while Sakura trailed along behind them both.

What had drawn her attention, and the creepy comment, was the racks of bodies in tanks all along the walls of the chamber they had just entered. She noted ice crystals hanging off the seemingly glass tubes.

"We kept these leftovers from Orochimaru's research because, well, they were cool," her jonin instructor lay the insensate Uchiha boy down on a table, before going around to judge the quality of bodies in the various tanks. "They keep tissue samples fresh forever."

Sakura was rubbing her arms, unable to bear the cold permeating the chamber. "What are we doing here, Kakashi-sensei?"

Dang! And that fifty ryo would've bought her a new dress, too! Stupid Nabiki didn't have to charge so much for those simple bells!

And she'd had to pay for Sasuke's, too, as he was too out of it to do it himself. And, since she didn't have a hundred ryo on her in the fifteen minutes that mattered (Sakura didn't have even half the money on her) so Nabiki accepted a modeling contract instead. Who knew? Maybe in a few years she'd grow a pair of boobs worth photographing.

Kakashi wasn't paying attention, finding a tank and triggering a fast thaw. "When the Uchiha Clan got destroyed, we recognized that their parts were valuable. So we stored all of the bodies in case of a situation such as this: if Sasuke needed repairs."

Nabiki tilted her head in shocked disbelief. "Do you mean to say that you have, I dunno, HUNDREDS of Sharingan eyes preserved here, and didn't bother to transplant them to any active ninja?"

Kakashi lifted his head, puzzled, before shaking off that thought. "You know, it never occurred to us. But no. That would make too much sense. And... uhm, it would," the man struggled for words, before reading a piece of paper handed to him from off-screen. "Ah, yes. It would violate the sanctity of the Uchiha. No one has ever done an involuntary transplant of their eyes before, you see, and... it's impossible, for some reason. Really. It is."

"Whatever." Nabiki rolled her eyes. Like Sakura, she was rubbing her arms, trying to stay warm in the freezing cold air of the chamber.

Kakashi hauled a body out of the cold storage tanks, and started roughly handling her, trying to get a good look at her eyes. This was easy, as the woman blinked, opening them and staring at Sasuke lying on the table.

"Sa... Sasuke?"

Nabiki's chill now had nothing to do with the cold air.

"Who's THAT!" Sakura blurted out before she could.

"Mikoto Uchiha, Sasuke's mom," Kakashi answered blandly, paying no attention to the fact that the woman he was handling like a side of meat was obviously moving and alive.

"You stuck her in a tank when she's NOT DEAD?!?!" Nabiki's hair was frizzing.

"Not dead? Ridiculous." Kakashi swatted down the woman's hands from where she'd raised them, trying to reach out for her son. "Of course she's dead. All the Uchiha were destroyed, killed by Itachi. Sasuke was the only survivor."

Absently, he struck the woman on the back of the head so she'd stop trying to struggle free of his grasp to go see to her son.

Kakashi began rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he stared at Mikoto's now unconscious body. "Yes, I think this one will do nicely. Now all we've got to do is the transplant operation to transfer these eyes into Sasuke and he will be as good as new!"

"Actually, sensei," Nabiki fought hard to keep down her bile, and not throw up like Sakura was now doing over off in an icy corner. "Don't you think the eyes of a fully grown adult might be too big for Sasuke's skull? His head is not fully developed yet."

The jonin looked back down on the perfectly healthy woman he was carrying and rubbed his chin. "Hmm, you may have a point."

"How about that one?" Nabiki pointed to a cold freeze tube where the body at least had obvious wounds, desperately hoping this one was actually dead, since her teacher didn't seem to care about whether the bodies were actually deceased or not, so long as he could take their eyes to fix up the damage to his precious Sasuke.

Absently tossing the woman back into her tank, sealing it closed and activating it, Kakashi crossed the chamber to look at the body his genin girl had indicated, completely uncaring of the fact that the woman behind him was alive, had reawakened, and was struggling against the glass as the cylinder refroze her.

In fact, he seemed totally oblivious to that fact.

"Hmm, Shisui Uchiha, died by drowning," Kakashi muttered, ignoring the fact that the body in the tank had had its head ripped clean off and was still spouting several kunai from open wounds. "Obvious suicide, but frozen soon after. Died in late teens, so he should be alright for a size comparison to our little Sasuke. Yes, I think these eyes just might be alright."

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

People completely unable/unwilling to recognize a truth when it is staring them in the face is a classic Nerima-ism. Also, I was trying to capture a little bit of that magic shop dealer who insists that nothing he sells is magic, that he doesn't believe it mind you, even while he can see it function with his own eyes and just happens to have the remedy on hand.

It was too Ranma-ish NOT to use! And, of course, it helped me mock the Uchiha. Always a good thing to do.

And I just couldn't help myself with the team reports. That was just too cool NOT to do. But I don't expect I'll be using them any more. A pity, really. They could be quite fun. And a big part of that report was once again frustration at people, this time those who never bother to imagine there COULD be any genin test other than Crackashi's bell exam.

I think my favorite part of that was making those famous manga authors behave exactly like their most prominent lead characters. Well, the ones of their own gender, anyway.

I don't worry about detractors. Although it's frustrating, I can just picture them in their Sasuke-themed underwear. It's good for laughs.

Time Panther put it perfectly: "these aren't Ranma characters dropped into Naruto's world. They have been spliced in. So take Azusa's normal habits and give her the disposition of a ninja, a trained killer. I can easily see she would be ripping off body parts if she liked them."


	8. Chapter 8

Ranma 1/2 in Konoha's Court  
Chapter Eight

by Lionheart

-oOoOo-

"Yo! Old man! How are ya Gramps?"

Looking up at the smiling young man who'd just kicked open the door to his office, the Hokage felt the surge of renewal he always did as the irreverent youth returned like a breath of fresh air to his stodgy old office where all was always so proper and orderly. "Ah, Ranma. What can I do for you? Have you come to return that book you borrowed?"

The pigtailed youth flipped it up from his toes to his hand, twirling it like a shuriken in between and inserting it back to its place in the Hokage's bookcase, using the dramatic motion to conceal his palming of two others, which the Hokage politely ignored, both of them presuming the same agreements applied about returning it when he was finished. "No problem. Hey, old man..."

The Hokage observed with some amusement that the boy began fidgeting. Ranma was not nervous often, but it was easy to guess the reason. Surely this was something to do with the Hyuga heiress, who'd helped him 'celebrate' their team assignment.

Instead Ranma blurted, "How do I tell people the Kyubi got out?"

"Well Ranma, since you two are adults now in the laws of the village it doesn't matter what her parents..." Sarutobi's voice cut off as his ears caught up with his brain and chocked off his mouth halfway through his prepared statement.

The old man felt suddenly cold, frozen by the dread of fear.

Then he recalled who he was talking to, and stopped his reaction before slamming his palm down on the button that would have flooded his office with ANBU. Chuckling darkly, he scowled at the young man before him. "Now, Ranma, some things are not appropriate to joke about..."

As response, Ranma lifted up his shirt, exposing his belly, and channeled chakra.

No seal appeared, of any kind.

"JIRAIYA!!" Instantly the Hokage was standing, hand smashing the button.

-oOoOo-

Ranma spent the next day and a half naked and flat on his back down deep under Konoha in a medical lab layered with seals of every kind, every inch of his flesh being gone over by seal experts. They checked his back, sides, the top of his head and soles of his feet, but spent most of their time on his stomach. And in spite of all their effort never found any trace of any demon of any kind in him - nor the means to contain one.

Well, that was obvious. There had never been one in him!

They had every seal expert from Konoha in there checking on him and quite a few medics. They had even forcibly recalled back to town a couple of people they called 'The Sannin' although Ranma knew that meant 'Three Ninja' and could only see two of them.

Oh well, maybe the third had died, or something. The guy did look pretty old.

About the only thing that could have made the experience any more humiliating would have been if they'd made him change into a girl during it. Ordinary medical exams were ok, but the stuff they did to girls? Brrr! He'd rather not ever go through THAT again!

Once more Sarutobi sat down on a stool before him. "Okay, Ranma, can we go through this explanation one more time?"

"Sure," the boy scratched his cheek, wondering when he'd get to wear pants again. Sitting there in a hospital gown was just too embarrassing! "When that Mizuki guy told me I had the demon sealed into me I figured there had to be a seal, right? So I went looking for one, but couldn't find it. So that's when I figured it might have escaped. Like maybe sometime when I wasn't looking, when I was a kid or something."

Ranma was a bad liar. He wasn't good enough at this to adopt an expression of guileless innocence, so went for cluelessness. It was one he'd worn all too often as a genuine one.

Despite Ranma's mangled attempt at falsifying his testimony, the Hokage could judge the craftiness beneath, and could see that whatever he was trying to obfuscate, the boy wasn't strictly lying. Nor was this a prank. He could only conclude that Ranma had, upon learning he was the demon container, let the Kyubi out and was trying to pretend he'd never had it. No doubt trying to dodge the hate he'd always lived through.

Sarutobi could only conclude that no sooner had the boy learned the cause of his being despised than he'd immediately acted to negate it; desperately seeking that acceptance that had always been denied him. The realization almost broke the old man. Bowing his head, he waved his hand, "Alright Ranma, you can go."

Instantly as the words passed his mouth, the boy was gone, zipping out of there so fast the hospital robe was still falling to the floor by the time Ranma, clad in his regular gear, was already rocketing out of the hospital several stories above.

Raising a world-weary expression to the experts and medics around him, Sarutobi proclaimed, "Order our ninja to assemble together. I have grave news."

-oOoOo-

Nabiki had been having trouble getting any info at all about the bodies in the secret lab in the basement. And Ranma hadn't been available for days. Still, her best chance of getting some training out of someone, ANYONE, was to get someone who knew something to owe her - and the bigger the debt, the better.

Well, what more could anyone ask than to be rescued from being kept as frozen spare parts? If she could get one of the Uchiha out of that storage basement, they'd owe her big time, and the Uchiha were supposed to know this ninja stuff better than anyone else.

But she didn't kid herself about her ability to sneak in there and grab one, nor did she fancy running away from town with a body slung over her back, then nursing that person to recovery hiding out in a desolate wilderness somewhere - if that would even qualify as staying an 'active duty' ninja and not cause her heart to stop.

No, Nabiki was doing what she did best, prying at the system to learn how it worked so she could subvert it using its own codes to disgorge what she wanted.

Still, she'd had a hard enough time getting anyone to even admit that lab existed!

The med-tech she was talking to now was the first she'd found, and she'd only gotten that far by being on a team with Kakashi and the Uchiha, pretending to be an aspiring medic-nin, and inquiring about spare eyes for if either of those teammates got wounded.

"So you saved the bodies for the eyes, but didn't make a few hundred people like Kakashi because..." she prompted, reaching for information.

"Of course we saved all of the Uchiha's eyes. We're not complete morons. We just never implanted them in anybody, because..." The man trailed off, reaching for an answer he didn't have and couldn't think of. A few hundred ninja with one Sharingan eye apiece would have almost been better than the Uchiha clan, actually.

"While you're not complete morons, you're close," Nabiki finished for him.

"Yes." The medic rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.

The guy's nervous laughter got cut off as an orderly opened the door to their room, leaning in to announce, "All ninja are required to assemble before the Hokage's tower for a special announcement." The guy was gone almost before completing this statement, off to repeat it to others.

-oOoOo-

Hinata was stalking her Wild Horse.

Having had him once she'd become addicted. Having him twice had reinforced that, and now all she could think of was obtaining number three. And four, five, six, etc.

If she'd known he'd named his clones Second, Third and Fourth she'd find a unique similarity and might well be found chanting "Gotta catch 'em all!"

But no, she wasn't aware he had, and was presently squirming under her itch at not having been able to find him for two days. And next time she did, it had better be the original, because the mood she was in she'd destroy a clone out of sexual exhaustion!

She'd presently staked out Ichiraku Ramen, knowing that her beloved would go into withdrawal if he kept away from there much longer, secured on a cot suspended on the ceiling just inside of the door, behind the shop sign, waiting for her prey to arrive when every minute reduced the chances for her to have enough patience remaining to take him off to a hotel and increased the probability of her taking him right there, when Kurenai walked in and looked right up at her.

"Come along, Hinata. Your own sensei couldn't find you, but we've all been summoned before the Hokage's tower for a special announcement."

-oOoOo-

The open square before the Hokage's tower was packed, wall-to-wall, with ninja. And many more ninja stood on the walls and housetops surrounding the square. But ninja were not all that were there, as quite a few civilian faces peeked out of windows or around corners. For an announcement to be made to all ninja, obviously it could not be kept a secret, so there was even a radio crew set up there to broadcast it to all ninja who could not be physically present, and most of the town's population was already listening in. Recording would be available to those who couldn't be alerted to tune in on time.

No, there was nothing secret about this. It was impossible for anything to be more public.

Nabiki found herself shoved into this crowd of faceless ninja - each and every face of whom she was determined to learn, eventually, awaiting whatever this announcement was, when she spotted someone she recognized.

Squirming over through the crowd to stand by her, and wary of giving too familiar a greeting after that debacle with her father (and she was still smarting over how cruel it was for those cosmic guys to include him but not let him remember her!), she got up close and laconically stated, "That's a new look for you, isn't it?"

"Hmm?" Azusa Shiratori turned to face her, giving no indication of whether she recalled the Tendo girl from their earlier world or not.

Nabiki took a moment to examine her fellow dimension traveler. Some changes, like the ninja gear, were expected. Others, like the wonderful short skirted dress too fancy to wear outside of a ballroom, or a professional skating match, was nicely reassuring, as that indicated the girl had kept at least some of her old personality traits, and Nabiki's power depended on being able to read and predict the people around her.

However, there were one or two curiosities she could not explain.

Of particular note were her earrings, a pair of large dangly ones each set with a grape-sized ruby cut in a heart shape as the centerpiece to a fantastic design of silver tracery and smaller supporting jewels.

No, not merely rubies, but the rare variation known as star rubies, where impurities caused an optical phenomena to developed of a certain sort, creating an enhanced reflective area in the shape of a star at or near the center of the jewel.

That gave an interesting account of the girl's finances. Perhaps she could sponge off of this girl instead of Ranma? She had to do something since the Wild Horse had gotten so wary.

Actually, Nabiki narrowed her eyes. A pair of costly earrings would've been typical enough of the figure skating legend, except each of these rubies had a very interesting shaped star - that of three commas swirling in a circle in the center. Given the country they lived in, gems, especially rubies, with that kind of flaw had to cost a mint given what they resembled. She was surprised it wasn't the Fire Lord's wife, of some similarly wealthy individual with political clout wearing those pieces.

And there was really only one reason to buy or wear a set like that.

"Interesting pair of earrings. I didn't know you were an Uchiha fangirl," the middle Tendo girl drolly remarked, fishing for data.

"Don't be silly." Azusa dismissed her completely. "Emo boys are God's punishment on stupid women. Little Azusa has nothing to do with the Uchiha."

"Then why are you wearing Sharingan styled earrings?"

Azusa just laughed.

"Well," Nabiki stated dryly, "Perhaps you hadn't heard. Sasuke lost his eyes to a foreign ninja. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Azusa just pointed innocently, letting the scene of Sasuke hanging on Kakashi's elbow in the crowd speak for her. The emo boy was turning and looking around, and the pair of eyes he had were the distinct dark black pupils of the Uchiha.

Nabiki grumbled quietly, so as not to be overheard. She was wearing a slightly dirty pair of panties since her clothes hadn't gotten washed since she'd arrived, her diet was suffering, and to top it off soon she'd have to be buying ninja tools. Why couldn't anyone around here just give up and let themselves be manipulated? She had expenses to meet, darn it!

And to top it off, she was running out of shampoo. Soon her hair would be a mess, as well as all of the other things that had gone wrong about her domestic life.

Still quietly grumbling, the mercenary girl decided to switch tactics. Nabiki wasn't kidding about what she'd give up to be able to have Kasumi's domestic skills. But... considering that she was only twelve at the moment, that wasn't too late to start getting them.

Kasumi wasn't much younger than this when their mother died and she'd had to take over caring for the household. And Nabiki had most of the same basic skills Kasumi had had back then - having watched food being cooked (sometimes), and tasted the final product.

Heck! Kasumi could hardly boil water at first! At least Nabiki had that much.

Then again, perhaps there was another opportunity there for her. Nabiki had noticed many of the shinobi children her age were just as badly off as her when it came to the domestic skills department. It might not be the same payout for effort as extortion, but mending a few tears in uniforms, providing a few home-cooked meals...

Yeah, if she was in their place, she'd pay for those.

Resolving to settle down with a book on how to sew once she got out of this meeting, Nabiki relaxed. Her chakra stores were small and her body weak, and she knew what sort of trouble she could get into by overextending her training on either. She could easily break, tear or strain something and set herself back for weeks.

So, since she couldn't be training as a ninja all of them time, once she'd run out of chakra to practice her Replacement technique and worked her weak body as far as it could go toward fitness before it began to be counterproductive, she'd catch up on domestic skills.

Then at least she'd have some marketable abilities.

The crowd growing hush alerted Nabiki to the Hokage taking the stands before them, and she turned her attention to the old man who led her village as he began to speak. "There is one among you who has borne more burdens than all the rest in keeping our beloved village safe. This person has bravely accepted both humiliation and abuse for protecting us, and what is worse, we were the ones inflicting it all upon him. It has often been said that: Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends', but I tell you death would have been a mild pleasantry compared to the life we inflicted on our savior for the crime of having kept us all from a terrible destruction."

The Hokage inhaled to shout, "I am speaking of the Kyubi container! The method our Fourth Hokage used to defeat the demon fox required two, not one, to perform, and one of those had to be a child not yet even hours old! This child was to have been our guardian, jailer of the nine-tailed demon fox, and our protection against its rage. Yet because this, our very own home village, refused to see the situation for what it was they treated the jailer to all the hate they held for his prisoner! Our protector was injured BY OUR HANDS, even while he protected us! But I am afraid all of that has come to an end. Because of the efforts of one of our own ninja, Mizuki Touji, to destroy our guardian, and falsely informing him that he was the Kyubi itself, our guardian has at last rejected his role and the Kyubi has escaped."

The town went white. Many ninja fell over in dead faints. Others, many as high as jonin, fell down or curled into balls and wept with sudden terror. Screams rent the town, as badly as if people had just seen their children stabbed.

Not a few civilians died of heart attacks, hearts failing them for fear.

The Hokage raised a hand, cutting across the noise with a jutsu so he could continue to give his sad news. "Instead of treating this town's greatest hero as the protector and guardian he was, we have continually rejected, abused and humiliated him. He is not to blame for our faults. We convinced him we wanted the demon to go, so he bowed to our request and let it go. We have no one to blame but ourselves, for if we had wanted him to continue doing the job of containing the beast, we should not have punished him for doing it! The fault for this is our own. We are to blame, and if I find any of you trying to redirect this onto the hero who has been your victim for so many years, I will order your execution. Truly, if you had wanted him to continue doing the job, you ought to have rewarded him, not punished him as you have done. For twelve years he has served admirably in his position, and not one kindness was done to him because of it. If any of you tried to obtain any other service, rent or electricity or a ninja mission, without paying for it I assure you the provider would have cut you off long before suffering twelve years of abusive non-payment! That this person has not only put up with us, but continues loyal to this village is nothing short of astounding. I do not think any of you would have been half so loyal in his position. I do not believe I could have maintained my love or loyalty to this village had I been given the provocation he was. But he has proven himself absolutely beyond all question in his devotion to us, despite ourselves. If any of you have any capacity for shame, feel it now. You have earned it."

The Hokage now continued in ominous tones. "But it is not to the past you should look. The Kyubi is out there, and if it had no reason to hate us before it surely does now. He cannot be returned to the prison we once kept him in, nor will I permit the beast to be stopped using the same technique. Knowing just how ungrateful this town can be to their heroes I refuse to subject another innocent child to your unthinking rage. And, seeing as how we do not have any other method of stopping the beast should it attack, that means we are now helpless before it until another means can be devised to contain it. I have ordered our seal masters to begin working on an alternative method at once. For the duration of their search border patrols are doubled to give us warning to evacuate should the Kyubi approach, and we shall remain on emergency alert status as though at war. All ninja leaves are hereby canceled, and ninja of all ranks are advised to increase their training. That is all."

-oOoOo-

Ranma had been watching the Hokage give this little speech from the top of a building overlooking the stage set up before the tower. He was not alone in this, actually the rooftop was filled with ninja of all ranks looking on, just as were all other roofs around there.

But, having had an idea of what the Hokage was going to say, Ranma had taken the precaution of being in his girl form for this speech, just in case they decided to ignore whatever decree he made just like the last time, and look for his boy-form to slaughter him.

According to what he'd heard and seen, this town had never thought clearly about the kyubi or its container, and a mob fight scene starring hundred of ninja had been high on his list of things to avoid. Although he'd learned a few nice fire jutsu from the last one, when they'd torched his apartment.

But it was a different surprise that came upon the pigtailed martial artist.

"You! Girl!" A ninja stood out from among the crowd, shouting and pointing at dear little Ranko, the name Ranma sometimes used for his girl form. "According to the Bloodline Protection Acts invokable in time of war, which was just declared, 'All reasonable measures can and should be taken to ensure the continuation of valuable hereditary traits'. Seeing as how the Sharingan Heir has stated he would only breed with you, and he is the last and only bearer of that bloodline loyal to this village, you are required to come with me."

"WHAT?!?" Ranko was standing, her pigtail was also standing on end. "WHY?"

The ninja had the bad grace to smirk. "You will be compensated, of course, should you choose to view it as a seduction mission. But most girls your age would jump at this chance. You get to become the mother of the new generation of Uchiha."

Brrr! A chill passed up and down Ranko's spine, worse than anything she'd ever suffered in Nerima. This guy was serious! What's more, everyone around was taking him seriously as well, and just expecting her to go along with this! Did they really think they could just slip her some money and she'd be willing to marry that emo freak?

She could only be glad Genma wasn't around, he'd jump at their offer, serving her up in a wedding gown with a ribbon tied around her before she could believe he'd yelled, "Sold!"

Actually, looking around some of the the sober, jealous, or congratulatory faces around her, these ninja viewed this as a privilege! An honor! Half of the women envied her, wistfully dreaming they could take her place! Only there were some among them who'd seen she didn't like this and she could tell they were contemplating how to compel her obedience. Actually, as it became plain to most of the ninja how revolted she felt by the idea, many among them began to get mad over the insult she was doing to their precious Uchiha.

Wait. That was hundreds of ninja getting mad at her. That was worse than any mob she'd faced before. Heck! This was worse than the last magical prince who'd showed up! That guy's army hadn't been a tenth the size of this one!

"Hold Varlets!"

Ranko had never in her life been so grateful to see Kuno show up. No, not ever. Literally hundreds of the Konoha ninja that had been surrounding her went flying, tossed in every direction by the great blast of wind as Tatewaki Kuno made his appearance, posturing on the rooftop beside her as a breeze dramatically stirred his new costume.

Heh, he always had been a great blowhard.

The wanna-be samurai clutched his sword in a two-handed grip, adopting a threatening pose to the other Konoha ninja, and declaring in that pompous way of his, "You want to grant the hand of the sweetest maiden in the Elemental Countries to a whining crybaby? I Tatewaki Kuno will NEVER allow it!"

For the first time in her life, Ranko was actually a teeny bit grateful for that declaration. Not that she enjoyed the obvious subtext - that Kuno wanted her for himself. But as he went on to rant about Sasuke Uchiha was no man she privately had to agree. The whiny pussboy was a spoiled brat who'd already gotten way more perks and benefits than he deserved., and she certainly didn't want to be just one more trophy tossed in his collection.

For that matter, she didn't desire to be had by any of the men wanting to possess her. The fact that she was still a guy under this curse hadn't seemed to matter to anyone but her, however.

And what was she doing thinking of herself using feminine pronouns anyway? Yech!

As dozens of jonin got sent flying in a single chakra-enhanced swing by the newly arrived swordsman, Ranko's eyes narrowed to slits. He'd not been this good even when he'd had that bokken made by Musashi. Kuno was now out of her league entirely.

That thought was completely galling.

As she slipped off, using this attack as a distraction, no more eager to be carried off by her amorous 'rescuer' than to go off to marry that emo-crybaby, hopping away in among a cloud of debris to disguise the motion, catching the lip of a roof and swinging around it like the most accomplished gymnast using a smooth practice bar, tucking her legs to flip in through an open window then disguising herself with a quick Shapeshift into an old woman in a worn kimono and slipping away, Ranko scowled over what she'd witnessed of the fighting now overhead.

First Mousse got a powerup and good eyes, now Kuno being a whirlwind of destruction... someone had set her near the bottom of the local totem pole as far as power players, and she didn't like it a bit. Sure, she was good at martial arts, but those two had been enhanced enough they were arguably better, and that wasn't even counting the local tricks!

Once more she reminded herself - that cosmic entity was betting against her. The game wasn't fair.

But she was going to push herself until she'd won it anyway!

-oOoOo-

Ten minutes later an exhausted Ranma emerged from a bathhouse, trembling as he sweated, exhausted in more ways than one.

He HAD to work on this chakra stuff! That or learn a simple Disguise technique. Shapeshift just took WAAY too much energy to hold for any length of time. She'd been forced to drop her old woman disguise five minutes ago, and the chase had been on since, five dozen ninja coming down on his girl form like an avalanche every time he turned around, only for Kuno to intervene once again, then repeat that over and over again all across the village!

The boy was honestly tired of his girl form being the most desired girl in town!

Anyway, between all the fighting and running he was panting from his exertions, and his chakra was exhausted by having maintained the shapeshift for so long, then cast it a few more times to arrange quick escapes. Lucky this bathhouse had been nearby on one of the few moments he could get away so he could return to his guy form, because while Ranma had plenty of body energy, or chi, the mana, or magical stuff he didn't have so much of, and chakra was, as the guy told him, a combination of the two.

And the shapeshift technique ate energy like Genma did Kasumi's cooking.

Ranma resolved he'd have to work on getting his stores up, and perhaps do some more work on getting an entirely magical version of this down. Only that brought up the question of how was he going to practice? He didn't have an apartment anymore, and the hole up the First Hokage's nose didn't have hot water. Sure, he could heat some over a fire, but a trail of smoke coming out of the monument's nostril would give that location away for sure.

He'd have to find a place in town to do more experimenting. And seeing how he'd be changing from girl to boy to back again trying to sense the inner workings of his curse in order to learn the technique, that meant he couldn't do it in a public bathhouse. That meant an apartment, and Nabiki was right, he couldn't afford one of those and still have enough money left to eat on.

His appetite once more got him into trouble. But the furnace of his metabolism took a load of fuel in order to keep his energy reserves running.

Actually, that was a scary thought. He already ate enough for a family of four. What was he going to be like once he started to get his mana reserves up too? He'd have to look into how to get his food budget down, otherwise he wouldn't be able to afford to eat! Not on a genin's mission payouts, anyway.

Hmm, speaking of that, Ranma's eyes lifted to a familiar blue shop sign in front of him, a grin sprouting on his face. This just might solve some of his problems!

He burst into the small restaurant, brushing the shop curtain aside as he loudly shouted. "Yo! Ucchan!"

Mousse and his team looked up at him from where they'd been eating at the counter.

-oOoOo-

Author's Notes:

Ahh, me. I'd nearly forgotten how much sheer, fantastic, insane FUN I'd had with this fic! 


End file.
